The Purple Pill Debate subreddit is a strange little corner of the internet, a place where intrepid Blue Pillers try to logic Red Pillers into giving up their repugnant ideology, and vice versa.
The main problem with this strategy is that Red Pillers don’t really understand logic as you or I do. They’ve got their own version, and it’s pretty … weird, as one recent post in r/PurplePillDebate makes abundantly clear.
The proposition being debated: “If you expect a man to date a rape victim, then you should be willing to date a pedophile.”
Wait, what? The Red Piller advancing this, er, argument tries to explain in more detail what exactly he means:
Rape victims often develop a variety of serious psychological issues, including depression, borderline personality disorder (aka borderline insanity disorder), self-harm, alcohol and/or drug addiction, and PTSD.
People who have these serious psychological issues are at a higher risk of joblessness, homelessness, and divorce. They tend to have unstable and chaotic relationships.
Now, of course it isn’t a rape victim’s fault that they were raped, but that still doesn’t mean that it is a good idea to date a rape victim.
So far, not so good. All of the sources the poster cites as evidence for these claims about rape survivors are behind paywalls, but a quick scan of the abstracts suggest that he didn’t read them very carefully. One of the papers he cites, actually looking at the effects of childhood sexual abuse rather than rape per se, reports that, contrary to the poster’s claims,
there is insufficient evidence to confirm a relation between a history of childhood sexual abuse and a postsexual abuse syndrome and multiple or borderline personality disorder.
That said, there’s no question that rape (or any kind of sexual abuse) can be extremely traumatic, with far-reaching and long-lasting consequences. These can certainly cause issues in relationships.
But every relationship has issues, and there is absolutely no evidence that rape survivors — or the survivors of any other serious trauma — are incapable of having healthy relationships.
At this point, our Red Pill poster goes completely off the rails:
Dating someone who has serious psychological issues is risky. To illustrate how risky it is, would you date a pedophile? Pedophilia isn’t a choice. However, pedophiles have unstable lives and wouldn’t make good romantic partners.
So, if you expect a man to be willing to date a rape victim because “it wasn’t her fault,” then you should be willing to date a pedophile because “it isn’t his fault.”
Wow. There are at least two gigantic problems here. First, of course, is the inherent offensiveness of suggesting there’s some sort of moral equivalency between pedophiles (potential if not necessarily actual predators) with rape survivors (people who have themselves been victimized by predators).
Second, there’s insurrectono’s if-then logic, which is utterly inappropriate when it comes to matters of the heart, where “should” shouldn’t go.
No, Red Pillers, no one is telling you that you are obligated to date rape survivors — or, for that matter, cancer patients, or Billy Joel fans, or indeed anyone in any particular category that human beings fall into.
Indeed, if your first thought upon hearing that someone us a rape survivor is to think “ick, she’s probably all messed up,” guess what?
No one really gives two shits whether or not you’re willing to date her. Because she doesn’t want to date you. Because you’re a petulant asshole with no empathy for other people. And that makes you pretty damn “risky” as a romantic partner.
H/T — r/TheBluePill
Dear Red Pillers,
Don’t date rape victims. Sure that’s a good start.
How bout you just stop dating women. We’ve read how you treat women you date. You create more rape victims. Just stop. Go your own way. It’s for the best.
-Women
@Victorious Parasol,
Pedophile and child molester are often used interchangeably, but they’re not actually the same thing. One refers to attraction, the other to actions.
Your comparison is still better than comparing rape victims to pedophiles though.
Mike,
In theory, personality disorders are an inherent part of someone’s personality. But yeah, it can’t be a coincidence that BPD and histrionic personality disorder are more commonly diagnosed in women and just so happen to fit negative stereotypes about women. Same goes for men and antisocial personality disorder diagnoses. It’s also kind of problematic to assume any personality trait, disordered or not is inherent. We just aren’t advanced enough in neuroscience to determine that.
Caveat, I have a psychology degree but am rusty on the subject.
Heck, why would either the cat or the woman need a boat in the situation hinted at in the picture? Either way, it doesn’t make sense.
Love it!
100% this ^
I can’t help thinking that not having red pillers wanting to date you is one of those mysterious “rape rewards” they always go on about.
@Alan
Well, how is the cat supposed to cross the ocean without a boat? It would get wet.
Seriously though, I’m pretty sure that’s from a Björk video. I don’t remember a lot about it except that she seems to be in a realtionship with the cat, they have a fight, she goes out to drink. then comes home, I guess they make up and the cat becomes a giant cat an dances.
I think that’s it.
Yep
I’ll look for boats in the video.
I remember a story about three French cats that went out in a boat. It was a tragedy .
Someone pulled the plug and Un, Deux, Trois, Quatre, Cinq.
David: I agree completely with the point of this post, but what’s with this phrasing: “pedophiles (potential if not necessarily actual predators)”?
EVERYONE IN THE WORLD could be described as a “potential if not necessarily actual predator,” and more to the point, given how strongly everyone here frowns on the use of “crazy” or “psycho” or “delusional” as ableist language it doesn’t seem right that the same doesn’t apply to pedophilia, which is also a psychiatric disorder recognized in the DSM-5.
To actually get into topic, I really wonder why this terper thought it necessary to talk about this. Is there any group of people saying that people should date rape victims? As in, actually look for rape victims and try and date them because of it?
Also, this comparison is vile, even discouting the possibility of talking about a child molester. If you have a partner who was raped, and then replace them with a pedophile, you’re not going to get the same person.
Alan: Shouldn’t that have been “four cats” for the joke to work?
Brian: Pedophiles are the literal example of a ‘potential predator’. They have an uncontrolled break in their sexuality that causes them to desire to prey on children. For virtually every other entry in the DSM, there’s a host of fashions for the behavior to manifest. But pedophilia has a nearly unique status in that its only manifestation is a desire to commit an action that is intrinsically harmful. (The closest I can think of would be sadistic personality disorder, but that hasn’t even been an official diagnosis since DSM-3. And if we lived in a universe where it was an actual diagnosis, I’d say that someone with SPD would be a ‘potential predator’, too, for much the same reason.)
Rosa: I suspect that he’s taken a common talking point for TERPers (“Never date a woman who says she’s been raped”) and gotten flack for it, so he’s pushing back against that. Of course, it’s easy to see why he’d get treated like a gross canker sore of humanity when expressing the view that way.
@Rosa: There are PUAs and the like who would advocate for dating rape victims or other women who are suffering through trauma because they’re easily manipulated, I imagine.
This thread is full of awesome women. I am extremely grateful that it exists.
@ freemage
Don’t we need three cats so it’s ‘1,2,3 cats sank’?
Wow. This… is the most angry that A post here has made me in a long time. There is so much wrong with what these assholes are saying. Like I usually at least in my head try to think of something clever to say but all I can really think of is…fuck this guy.
Not just any cat, looks like that’s an Abyssinian cat.
Bjork looks like she’d be fun to hang out with. Until things start getting a bit wild and stuff gets broken, or she falls down in the street. Several times. 😛
Brian, not to pile on, but pedophiles who’ve never acted on their desires certainly exist. It’s hard for them to find help too, for obvious reasons. Some have support groups that only abstinent pedophiles are allowed into. I think there might’ve been a guest on the Mental Illness Happiness Hour podcast talking about this.
Also, was this Redditor gracing the internet with his mind grapes for this apropos of nothing? Gee thanks. It hopefully wasn’t an actual event that spurred this, and I’d doubt it.
Msexception, I ran into her both times I was in Iceland!! But would never in a million years try to talk to her. Everyone who lives there is so nonchalant, like oh yeah, my neighbor. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize her in the meme, I’ve seen that video.
In my mis-spent youth I used to work for bands. One time we had a series of meetings with a new band from Iceland about doing their lighting.
They were very nice, and we loved their creative vibe, it really tallied with our way of thinking; but the budget just wasn’t enough for what we all wanted to do, so rather than compromise, we went our separate ways.
The band was called The Sugarcubes and they had a quiet little quirky girl as their singer. She was nice but very shy.
I wonder what happened to her.
@ dr hoveiny
There are many reasons to like Iceland, not least that they’ll divert a major road so as not to disturb the pixies; but one thing I especially like is that the Prime Minister’s home telephone number is in the local phone book.
That might have something to do with the fact that Coventry has more people than Iceland, and therefore the post of Prime Minister is less a matter of national security and more a matter of “Carl, it’s your turn again.”
WTF did I just read?
Also, would this attitude extend to other traumas? Like, would they advocate not dating a survivor of abuse? Jackasses.
http://media0.giphy.com/media/4pMX5rJ4PYAEM/giphy.gif
I can’t decide what’s grossest: the OP’s gaslighty aspersions on the mental state of rape victims (the same tactic rapists use to nullify their victims’ testimony and silence them), the idea that rape survivors are damaged goods and therefore undateable, or the way Redpillers always respond to “hey, women who are XYZ are equally worthwhile and valuable and let’s be mindful of their struggles” with FEMINAZIS ARE TRYING TO FORCE US TO HAVE SEX WITH XYZs. (Wait, what?)
…and the search for the elusive Feminist Gotcha continues.
Yes! And many politicians are in metal bands or something. Lovely place.
Oh, though I had a firsthand Roosh ebook experience there. The American guys I met found out about Bang Iceland by Google autocomplete and bought it as a joke. I give them the benefit of the doubt, as they were otherwise awesome and nice, and were there for a bachelor party trip.
I remember reading it aloud to make fun of it, but was stunned when I got to the notorious rape passage. I knew what MRAs were at the time, but didn’t know how horrible PUAs had got since the days of Mystery on Mtv. He said something like “thanks to a mix of feminism and alcoholism, Icelandic girls will sleep with you within minutes of meeting you.” He still had to rape one though. Otherwise a great trip :/