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[Classic]

If that's not the implication, Classic, explain the following:

OH! This should completely clarify Shinra's objection!

Why is it rape when a man has sex with an inebriated woman, but not when a woman has sex with an inebriated man?

Shinra... Nowhere did I define rape that way.

First, it's not the inebriation exactly that's the issue. It's creating the feeling or fact that someone doesn't have the right or ability to make their own decision whether or not to have sex. Though the phrase "informed consent" gets thrown around a fair bit it's more useful to describe rape as a situation where the victim is unable to choose or enact a rejection of the advances.

Second, I've tried to make a point that the genders of the victim and offender are irrelevant by choosing gender neutral terms. There were points when, because of my particular anecdotes, I related a generalization about men using alcohol and other kinds of coercive tools (e.g. their greater relative size). I specified gender only because of my data points. If I made a slip-up and used an exclusively male pronoun in a situation where I was not specifically relating disturbing overheard conversations or direct confessions to me, I apologize.

[Shinra]

Oh boy well I guess Classic wants to take the conversation this direction.

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.

so this isn't what you said?

Anyway, how does this relate to the topic at hand, anyway? We're going into another discussion altogether that has nothing to do with the topic. I don't want to go there.

[Classic]

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.

so this isn't what you said?

If I made a slip-up and used an exclusively male pronoun in a situation where I was not specifically relating disturbing overheard conversations or direct confessions to me, I apologize.

In fact, that line was the crystallization of the previously mentioned anecdotal evidence. That all of the could-be aggressors were men and all of their (reported?) intended victims women was the reason for those over-specific pronoun choices.

It relates to the tangent at hand because Gabe, and maybe even someone on the boards reading this, don't seem to get why this is a preoccupation for some people. Like you point out, the unreasonable assertions of some people don't change some salient points. Rape's definition is broader than a disturbing number of people think. It seems likely from my experience, to be taken with the salt appropriate to anecdotal evidence, that there are people who commit rape but do not recognize it as such.

EDIT:
Obviously, recognizing something as a serious crime or risky behavior is a way to deter a sane person from doing so.

[TA]

Nnno, the Biting Beaver argument really is not at all relevant to the topic of the incestuous hugbox that is the Feminist blogosphere and the silencing tactics at play.

[Classic]

Wait.
Time out.
Biting Beaver isn't a member of the "Feminist blogosphere" on the grounds that it's the blog of someone in need of a psychology professional?
Is the feminist blogosphere also crazy and/or silencing dissent because it's an incestuous hugbox?
I thought our tangent line went:
Gabe calls lynch mob > Is Gabe a dick for calling the lynch mob? > Previously Gabe was accused of being dick towards people upset by his comic > Why are people upset by this comic and why is that sane?

[Bal]

RE: Plying girls with alcohol.

I have heard, with my own two ears, college age girls talking about getting drunk so they can "make a mistake" or "do something stupid". i.e Get drunk so they can guiltlessly fuck a stranger. I'm not condoning that kind of thing, and I was actually kind of horrified at the time, but that particular game is often played from both sides.

[Mongrel]

Alright, alright if no one's going to going to play dumb and state the obvious, I suppose I'll do it (playing dummy is not much of a stretch for me of course).

----------------------------

For a man to be of any use to a "biting beaver" he has to have - not to put too fine a point on it - a hard-on. Or something that can pass for one (unless we're talking strap-ons and sodomy or something... but that's a pretty damned small number of incidents).

And while she "She wanted it!" argument is a well-worn male-on-female rapist justification, it's tougher (but not impossible) for a guy with a raging boner to argue he wasn't interested.

If the idea is to use "chemical persuasion", I can't speak for roofies or the like, but getting a man so drunk he can't see will make him limp as often as not.

Finally, a male is - lets face it - generally physically stronger, even when drunk.

I would never argue that female-on-male rape never happens, but the point is that the inherent "defences" a man posseses does leave him with a much higher threshold of security. And that also means a male claiming female-on-male rape is faced with a much higher burden of proof.

----------------------------

Now that that's out of the way, rebut as you see fit.

[Defenestration]

You're ignoring the fact that arousal is a subliminal mental function. It is not that hard to think of a situation where *either* sex could be very obviously aroused in a physical way and still not be consenting. Rapists observing that a woman is wet and harassing the victim about it is rather common.

And while you make some arguments about biological differences between the sexes, they are not hard and fast rules. The way I figure, men and women are either equal legally or they're not.

[Mongrel]

I agree that can happen, but that's also a good example of a very ugly grey area, where say, partial consent is given, where consent is given but then retracted, where rationalization occurs such that someone thinks they are consenting at the time but only later realizes they didn't really want to do something, or any number of similar things.

All of these are real situations, but are a nightmare from a legal perspective. Or even just trying to determine intent and responsibility without getting into legal questions.

[Rico]

You just put actual rape into a "gray area."

[Mongrel]

I get what you're saying, but situations where someone's motives are legitimately confused do also exist.

Of course if one person is confused and the other isn't (i.e. one person isn't sure of what they want and the other is very sure of what they want), it is incumbent on the unconfused person to get some certainty about the other person.

But you can have situations where both people are confused, or where someone gives express consent without really being truly willing (out of situational pressure or confusion or whatever) and the other person accepts this at face value.

Is the latter situation rape? Yes, it meets the definition of "sex where one person is not fully consenting" but treating these corner cases the same as the stereotypical "frat boy with roofies" or "rapist in the bushes" type of thing debases a legtimate debate and risks criminalizing situations where criminalization is not appropriate.

[Norondor]

You just put actual rape into a "gray area."

... which is pretty much why the idea of "rape culture" exists.

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".

ok, i won't blame the media, i'll just leave the fault for being stupid assholes where it belongs -- with you, personally!

let's hop in the wayback machine here and see what kind of idiocy is framing the debate here, the sort of poisonous fringe nonsense we need to be blowing up to save feminism... from itself.

Because rape survivors exist among us, and after being victimized by rapists, they are revictimized by a society that treats even real rape like a joke, forced to live in a culture that actually has a lot of rape jokes, including those about rape victims being actively denied justice for no other reason than because people don't take rape seriously. I don't find rape funny because rape victims are often doubted, mocked, and insulted openly.

No, one rape joke does not "cause" someone to go out and commit a rape. But a single rape joke does not exist in a void. It exists in a culture rife with jokes that treat as a punchline a heinous, terrifying crime that leaves most of its survivors forever changed in some material way. It exists in a culture in which millions and millions of women, men, and children will be victimized by perpetrators of sexual violence, many of them multiple times.
 
It exists in a culture in which rape not being treated as seriously as it ought means that vanishingly few survivors of sexual violence see real justice, leaving their assaulters free to create even more survivors.

I also didn’t like the post because I object to people who use survivors as a rhetorical device to shield their arguments from criticism.  I feel, as a rape survivor, way more dehumanized by this post that purports to speak for survivors than I ever could by the Penny Arcade comic.  I reject and resent the suggestion that having been sexually assaulted in my past makes me unable to see that this joke for what it was. I think this rhetorical device of casting survivors as a group of women too delicate to even understand context and meaning, while well-meaning, actually hurts rape survivors by reinforcing the erroneous notion that once a woman is raped, she’s forever ruined and broken.  I don’t like being used as a rhetorical weapon in a general rant against comedy.

[...] That said, the guys at Penny Arcade responded in officially the worst possible way to respond.  As Melissa correctly notes, they attacked strawmen, and this time they really did make light of rape.  Jokes where you condemn rape in a sardonic tone really do imply that rape isn’t a big deal.  In the time it took them to write the response, there were probably like 10 rapes in the U.S. alone.  The cartoon implied that rape is less common than it is, that rape culture isn’t real, and that the whole subject is beneath you.  This was tone deaf, sexist, and stupid.

Most critics of rape jokes object on one of two bases, neither of which are "your rape joke will directly cause someone to go out and commit a rape." (That idea is absurd—which is why it's so appealing to defenders of rape jokes to deliberately misrepresent critics' arguments in such a fashion.) One criticism is that rape jokes are triggers for survivors of sexual violence (and/or attempted sexual violence). The other is that rape jokes contribute to a rape culture in which rape is normalized.
Source: Carnal Nation (http://s.tt/11cfo)

October 6, 2010

On the Penny Arcade blog, Mike mocks trigger warnings, and Jerry announces that they’ll be selling a dickwolf t-shirt in the Penny Arcade store.

yeah you know when you look at it like this i can't imagine why anyone would take umbrage with mike and jerry's behavior. US GEEKS AND GAMERS RIGHT

[Mongrel]

I don't know if that first line is directed at me Nor, but when I said "gray area" I am referring to a (small?) subset of incidents. I'm would never say that all rape is merely the result of some "misunderstanding".

Sex is a fraught thing. And issues of sexual consent are possibly one of the most complex questions the species regularly deals with. So us getting in some fool fight here is not going to resolve a thing, I can tell you that right now.

I'm not saying don't talk about it, but getting too lathered up about it is not going to do anything for anyone.

[Mongrel]

Legitimate honest question: Would anyone say that our culture also trivializes robberies or beatings or murder by using them as common punchlines? Or that a casual references to robberies or beatings or murders are woven into our culture and daily life?   

[Norondor]

probably, yes. however, you also do not hear people saying that someone was asking to be robbed, walking around dressed like that.

[Misha]

Alright, alright if no one's going to going to play dumb and state the obvious, I suppose I'll do it (playing dummy is not much of a stretch for me of course).

----------------------------

For a man to be of any use to a "biting beaver" he has to have - not to put too fine a point on it - a hard-on. Or something that can pass for one (unless we're talking strap-ons and sodomy or something... but that's a pretty damned small number of incidents).

And while she "She wanted it!" argument is a well-worn male-on-female rapist justification, it's tougher (but not impossible) for a guy with a raging boner to argue he wasn't interested.

If the idea is to use "chemical persuasion", I can't speak for roofies or the like, but getting a man so drunk he can't see will make him limp as often as not.

Finally, a male is - lets face it - generally physically stronger, even when drunk.

I would never argue that female-on-male rape never happens, but the point is that the inherent "defences" a man posseses does leave him with a much higher threshold of security. And that also means a male claiming female-on-male rape is faced with a much higher burden of proof.

----------------------------

Now that that's out of the way, rebut as you see fit.

So men never rape men, got it.

[Mongrel]

"biting beaver" does not refer to male-on-male rape, no.

Maybe you thought I was adressing something broader, but this was not the case. I thought my post made that pretty clear given that I quoted "biting beaver" or said "female-on-male" at least three times, including in my very first line.

I am going to be kind and assume your massive was merely an accidental byproduct of reading my post too quickly?

[Rico]

Nor, that is all well and good in a vacuum. However, in our very limited sample of posts, again, what we mostly have is Gabe responding to people who ARE making the crazy claims.

Our sample of interactions other than that are: "I am surprised this is as much of an issue this is for long-time readers given our other subject material.", taking the shirt down, and calling out one of his fans who was harrassing a rape survivor.

[Rico]

probably, yes. however, you also do not hear people saying that someone was asking to be robbed, walking around dressed like that.

Actually, you do. Not so much for clothing specifically these days, but certainly for having smartphones out in the wrong neighborhood. It doesn't get publicized as much but the sentiment is definitely there.

[Crouton]

The thing is, guy-on-guy action is, in most parts of the U.S. anyway, largely treated like rape whether it's consensual or not.

Actually, you do. Not so much for clothing specifically these days, but certainly for having smartphones out in the wrong neighborhood. It doesn't get publicized as much but the sentiment is definitely there.

A million times this.