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[Shinra]

I think it's a case of "Hey man, you can't joke about that, my father died that way".

Only if that discussion explains how that joke in any way trivializes rape or makes fun of rape victims for being rape victims*.  Maybe I'm just weird, but when a comic is mentioning rape as an example of something horrifying and torturous that it is ridiculous to even passively condone, I find it hard to take seriously the argument that the comic is somehow trivializing rape.  Or that it makes the artist a rape apologist.

*kind of an important distinction!  Being a rape victim doesn't confer a special magical status where stupid shit you spray on the internet becomes immune to criticism, and making fun of idiots for being idiots doesn't take on a misogynistic aspect just because those idiots are also rape victims.

I think there's also the argument to be made that the reactionary way that feminism is handling the topic of 'rape culture' is just making a lot of sensible people roll their eyes. The end result of this is that when someone complains about something legitimately fucked up, like rape in the army which actually is perpetuated by a culture which actually does promote rape, it's harder for people to take it, and it's victims seriously.

Again, this whole thing feels less to me about people taking genuine offense at something they found genuinely offensive and more about radical, militant feminists deciding what we should and should not be able to talk about. I view these arguments the same way I do religious fanatics and racial supremacists. The fact that this was taken as seriously as it was by people bothers the hell out of me.

[Brentai]

The main problem is that some people found the concept of wolves whose limbs are dicks kind of funny, and they clashed badly with the people who saw dickwolves as mascots for rape due to their propensity for rapin' eveybuddy.

The whole dickwolf circus is full of clowns and I don't even want to comment on it, other than to mention I find it kind of irritating that so many people went to war against the dickwolf idea and left Pedobear - an actual, direct mascot for imaginary child abuse - pretty much alone.

Not that I actually want people to go berserk over Pedobear.  I want them to get the help they need to not be emotionally damaged by every lowbrow joke they read on a lowbrow humor site, and I want said humor sites to not pretend that their emotional damage, self-inflicted or not, isn't real or important.

[Brentai]

Thread is now under Death Panel jurisdiction.  All the usual rules apply.

Tread lightly.

[TA]

Again, this whole thing feels less to me about people taking genuine offense at something they found genuinely offensive and more about radical, militant feminists deciding what we should and should not be able to talk about. I view these arguments the same way I do religious fanatics and racial supremacists. The fact that this was taken as seriously as it was by people bothers the hell out of me.

Don't forget that the whole thing started with a Shakesville post.  A post on an outrage blog, by a professional outrage blogger, who makes her living by pageviews and donations.  Stirring up controversy is quite literally how Melissa McEwan gets paid.

[Smiler]

Thread is now under Death Panel jurisdiction.  All the usual rules apply.

Tread lightly.

There goes the neighborhood.

[A²]

Again, this whole thing feels less to me about people taking genuine offense at something they found genuinely offensive and more about radical, militant feminists deciding what we should and should not be able to talk about. I view these arguments the same way I do religious fanatics and racial supremacists. The fact that this was taken as seriously as it was by people bothers the hell out of me.

Don't forget that the whole thing started with a Shakesville post.  A post on an outrage blog, by a professional outrage blogger, who makes her living by pageviews and donations.  Stirring up controversy is quite literally how Melissa McEwan gets paid.

Thank you for finding the words that I was trying to say why the whole start of this shitstorm smelled like actual shit.

[Zaratustra]

a professional outrage blogger, who makes her living by pageviews and donations

As opposed to Gabe and Tycho, who make their living by selling rainbows to leprechauns.

[A²]

a professional outrage blogger, who makes her living by pageviews and donations

As opposed to Gabe and Tycho, who make their living by selling rainbows to leprechauns.

While this book I have does have a rainbow-y cover, I would protest that I am not a leprechaun.

[Shinra]

a professional outrage blogger, who makes her living by pageviews and donations

As opposed to Gabe and Tycho, who make their living by selling rainbows to leprechauns.

Yes, but in this particular case they get pageviews by being legitimately funny, instead of by being outraged that someone is legitimately funny.

[Shinra]

And while the Dickwolves controversy was a hallmark in just how awful a human being Gabe can be, he's been demonstrating his willingness to let his audience lynch people since the Harlan Ellison incident.

Ellison's pretty famous for starting shit.  I don't remember the details of that one, but Harlan's a big boy.

So Tycho and I are up in front of the audience with Harlen, and Hank (the con organizer) presents us with some jester hats (“Fool’s caps”). Tycho and I put ours on because we are polite, but Harlen - who is apparently too cool for school - refuses to wear his. I turn to him and say, “Don’t you want your hat?” and he tells me to fuck off. This caught me off guard, I mean I have no clue who this fucking coot is. Then he points to a pad of paper he has and asks if I’m aware that his paper is also called foolscap. Now, I’ve never heard that term before, I pretty much just call it paper so I shake my head “no.” This really isn’t a fair question.  I mean, it would be like me asking him about Photoshop or if he can remember what he had for lunch. The guy was essentially setting me up to look stupid in front of all these people. So then he asks me if I even attended college and I say “No, I did not.” Then, he says “did you at least finish high school?”

I said that I had, but you couldn’t really hear me because the audience is laughing at me along with Harlen. So once they stop, I turn to him and I say, “While I’ve got you here I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Star Wars stuff you wrote.”

I didn’t know him very well but I felt like mistaking him for someone who writes Star Wars books was the sort of insult that would cut right to his brittle old bones. The audience seemed to agree because I could hear a lot of ooooooooh’s and oh no’s over the laughing. Some people in the front even suggested a fist fight was now in order. I look over at Harlen and he’s staring at me like he wants to choke me. He then says “so that’s how it’s going to be.” Now keep in mind that he’s the one that started hostilities when he told me to fuck off. I’m just the one that finished it. The guy tells some pretty funny stories about how witty he is and how he’s always saying clever things at exactly the right moment. When confronted with someone who was unwilling to take any crap from him he had no clever retort. The great writer just glared at me and then walked off stage.  I don’t doubt that given enough time he could craft a perfectly worded and extremely vicious response but up there on stage in front of all his fans the man didn’t have shit.

I don’t blame Harlen for not knowing who I am. I honestly don’t expect him to. I don’t expect anyone that old to know who I am. I did expect him to be polite and at least respect the fact that I was a fellow guest of honor. That was apparently too much to ask for from the great Harlen Elison.

Sounds like a case of 'do you know who I am?', and unlike the rage against Paul, this was more 'here's an anecdote about a guy who turned out to be an asshole' rather than 'here, make this guy's life a miserable hell'.

[Classic]

They only make their living off of leprechauns when they can call them little people. Though rainbows are pretty prevalent throughout.

something legitimately fucked up, like rape in the army which actually is perpetuated by a culture which actually does promote rape

When you say "rape in the army" do you mean crimes service(wo)men undertake against civilians or opposing "combatants" or violent crimes between service(wo)men? Also, it might be good to link some seminal articles on the subject for the one of me who hasn't already read them.

Also... Shinra... "storybook courtship" romanticizes male initiative and assertiveness and often presupposes a cultural stigma against women acting in the same way. It's taken over 30 years of feminism to undermine and undo those narrow romantic prescriptions. I grant that this is anecdotal evidence, but even in my passing interactions with sleazy fratboys I did not escape casual mention of using recreational drugs (no, they did not, to my knowledge, mention Rohypnol) to ply sex from women.

[Shinra]

When you say "rape in the army" do you mean crimes service(wo)men undertake against civilians or opposing "combatants" or violent crimes between service(wo)men? Also, it might be good to link some seminal articles on the subject for the one of me who hasn't already read them.

I'm referring to, specifically, rape in the army among servicemen and women. Apparently this is something that has gone on in the armed forces (not just the army, I should correct that) for years, well before women ever entered the service. Gang rape as a means of assertion. It's a big problem.

http://theweek.com/article/index/212187/the-us-militarys-rape-epidemic
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/04/03/male-rape-in-the-military-being-confronted.html
http://militaryrapecrisiscenter.org/

My understanding is that military culture is highly sexually charged and extremely pack oriented. Rape is treated as establishing the pecking order and leadership does not really care to do anything about it.

Also... Shinra... "storybook courtship" romanticizes male initiative and assertiveness and often presupposes a cultural stigma against women acting in the same way. It's taken over 30 years of feminism to undermine and undo those narrow romantic prescriptions. I grant that this is anecdotal evidence, but even in my passing interactions with sleazy fratboys I did not escape casual mention of using recreational drugs (no, they did not, to my knowledge, mention Rohypnol) to ply sex from women.

I'm honestly not sure what this point is in reference to or how it applies to rape at all, unless you are seriously making the argument that trading sex for drugs is rape.

Unless I'm misunderstanding, and you mean 'getting a girl drunk to have sex with her', which is a conversation topic for another day entirely, as it is not particularly relevant to what is going on in this thread. I already tackled the subject of 'terrible people', and I think we would see this kind of behavior regardless of how our culture viewed the act of rape.

[Classic]

Thanks for the links.

I'm honestly not sure what this point is in reference to or how it applies to rape at all
...
'getting a girl drunk to have sex with her'

I mostly meant the "getting a girl drunk to have sex with her" kind of plying. Thankfully, no one discussed trading drugs for sex in front of me. I don't think my naive little heart could have handled it.

The reason it's relevant is that, while we would have rapists regardless of how perfectly the act is vilified and scorned, we live in a culture where (some) men who would not normally be rapists, and do not consider themselves to be rapists, put women into situations where they feel they have no right or no ability to refuse the advances of their would-be partner.

Does that make sense?

[Shinra]

The implication is that the woman is incapable of making good decisions. I think what's more shocking is that feminists support this narrative rather than fight to strike it down. I do not believe that it is a product of rape culture.

[Classic]

Shinra, no. No that is not what the narrative says.
It is possible I don't know the definition of "rape culture," but what that narrative says is that people put others into situations where their victim's ability to make good or bad decisions is moot, and I have been witness to members of a culture that casually pursues these scenarios.

I don't- I don't even see how you read my rough description of unsavory "romantic(?)" gestures and got, "the woman is incapable of making good decisions."

[Mongrel]

My understanding is that military culture is highly sexually charged and extremely pack oriented.

Now there's a startling revelation.

[Norondor]

the raddest thing is how the media's nonstop attempts to portray the fringe of feminist theory as the mainstream in an effort to discredit it throughout the last two decades were successful enough that you softheaded white people don't bother making the distinction anymore, and it definitely does not make me want to shoot you in the fucking head

[TA]

Right, it's the media's fault you and Constantine are pointing to shit like Shakesville as being legitimate.  Yes, this particularly bullshit breed of Internet Feminism Blogging is poisonous fringe nonsense that should not be confused for the mainstream, and every time it's taken as serious mainstream thought it does a lot of damage to legitimate feminism.  That's the problem - that these idiots are listened to, and are framing the debate, and when they get called out on their blatant nonsense you say it's "mocking rape victims".

[Shinra]

Right, it's the media's fault you and Constantine are pointing to shit like Shakesville as being legitimate.  Yes, this particularly bullshit breed of Internet Feminism Blogging is poisonous fringe nonsense that should not be confused for the mainstream, and every time it's taken as serious mainstream thought it does a lot of damage to legitimate feminism.  That's the problem - that these idiots are listened to, and are framing the debate, and when they get called out on their blatant nonsense you say it's "mocking rape victims".

You said everything I could possibly say in response to this, so I'm just going to quote your post.

the raddest thing is how the media's nonstop attempts to portray the fringe of feminist theory as the mainstream in an effort to discredit it throughout the last two decades were successful enough that you softheaded white people don't bother making the distinction anymore, and it definitely does not make me want to shoot you in the fucking head

Also Nor aren't you as white as the driven snow

edit; originally i had also responded to classic with this post but i don't feel like taking the conversation in this direction.

[Mongrel]