<feminist>
I'd point out that for much of history women were more or less chattel to the male members of their family (their father while growing up and later their husband), and never really were alone or had their own agency or goals independent of their husbands. Therefore, the fact that the historical penalty for rape was quite severe you have to look at it from the perspective of property rights and emasculation. What I'm saying is for most of the history of the world I doubt very highly there was such a thing as called 'date rape', and its historical fact that spousal rape is a very recent idea.
</feminist>

I do like to think of myself as a feminist, and I don't like it when I become argumentative bit...no, that's a lie, I love to fight.

You are correct, it is a historical fact that we were chattel and property to men for most of history...

And here is why my fellow feminists HATE me.

There is a reason for the past.  We ARE the weaker sex.  You can't point out how we were treated without being fair.

We are smaller.  We are weaker.  We cannot survive on our own in the ancient world, at least not for long.  You had to be rawhide back then.  Not only that, but we tended to die during childbirth.  Everything was hand made, what women did when they were chattel was also necessary labor just to process the raw materials.

The way we were treated back then was a product of the environment.  We can't rightly look at men and blame them, for the past, when humans were carving out the world.

The rights we have today, the equality we have the right to enjoy is a product of technology and thousands of years of advancement.  Remove that and we need to be subservient to men again, otherwise neither gender will survive.

Now that isn't to say that it should carry over to today.  Today we have the infrastructure and technology in place to demand more, to demand a better life, to demand equality.  Thanks to those thousands of years, now we can be feminists.

But that doesn't mean we should keep throwing the past in men's faces.  It wasn't a product of sexism and misogyny that the past was the way it was.  To bring that up is the same as BLM demanding reparations and accusing white people alive today of owning their ancestors.  You are holding people alive today accountable for shit they weren't even alive to participate in. 

What's worse is that it makes the feminist argument annoying and irrelevant. 

You don't point to the past and say here is the problem with the present.  You point to the present and say this is the problem.  This is what we need to address and fix, what is happening now.  Not what happened before surnames existed. 

"You don't point to the past and say here is the problem with the present.  You point to the present and say this is the problem.  This is what we need to address and fix, what is happening now.  Not what happened before surnames existed. "

BRAVO IrishGirl

[PenitentGirl]

I don't necessarily disagree with some of what you said, I was merely commenting on when you made a "historical" versus modern comparisan of rape. Basically, and I spent a lot of time not getting to the point, but I am not even certain there is an apples to apples comparison available. I.E. I don't even think the word rape 600 or 1000 years ago means the same thing as it does today.


Also, while I will admit (and agree) that blaming such things like violent video games in the USA for our homicide rate is silly, it is at the same time obvious that culturally Americans are more likely to murder each other, even when you correct for the relative availability of firearms or other factors. Saying that American culture is more violent on average than say Canadian or Australian culture is without a doubt true, 100%. But we don't know why that is, and people who for example blame violent video games or rap music do so without any evidence and with a desire to simplify a problem that probably has hundreds of distinct causes.

[[Bubbles]]

I don't necessarily disagree with some of what you said, I was merely commenting on when you made a "historical" versus modern comparisan of rape. Basically, and I spent a lot of time not getting to the point, but I am not even certain there is an apples to apples comparison available. I.E. I don't even think the word rape 600 or 1000 years ago means the same thing as it does today.


Also, while I will admit (and agree) that blaming such things like violent video games in the USA for our homicide rate is silly, it is at the same time obvious that culturally Americans are more likely to murder each other, even when you correct for the relative availability of firearms or other factors. Saying that American culture is more violent on average than say Canadian or Australian culture is without a doubt true, 100%. But we don't know why that is, and people who for example blame violent video games or rap music do so without any evidence and with a desire to simplify a problem that probably has hundreds of distinct causes.

*footnote* - when the word rape first became part of the common vernacular it could only be attributed to women who were married or betrothed. So you couldn't "rape" me because I am neither and in societies eyes, (at the time) fair game to whoever could get to me first.

However, I disagree with the aforementioned the past has no effect on the present. I believe, Slavery, The Apartheid, The Holocaust, The dropping to 2 atomic bombs on Japan and a SLEW of other events history has for us is empirical evidence that the past still effects who we are and what we do today.  I believe that many african americans (really ALL americans) should be able to agree this country's history w/ slavery effects what shapes our world today. 

I don't necessarily disagree with some of what you said, I was merely commenting on when you made a "historical" versus modern comparisan of rape. Basically, and I spent a lot of time not getting to the point, but I am not even certain there is an apples to apples comparison available. I.E. I don't even think the word rape 600 or 1000 years ago means the same thing as it does today.


Also, while I will admit (and agree) that blaming such things like violent video games in the USA for our homicide rate is silly, it is at the same time obvious that culturally Americans are more likely to murder each other, even when you correct for the relative availability of firearms or other factors. Saying that American culture is more violent on average than say Canadian or Australian culture is without a doubt true, 100%. But we don't know why that is, and people who for example blame violent video games or rap music do so without any evidence and with a desire to simplify a problem that probably has hundreds of distinct causes.

*footnote* - when the word rape first became part of the common vernacular it could only be attributed to women who were married or betrothed. So you couldn't "rape" me because I am neither and in societies eyes, (at the time) fair game to whoever could get to me first.

However, I disagree with the aforementioned the past has no effect on the present. I believe, Slavery, The Apartheid, The Holocaust, The dropping to 2 atomic bombs on Japan and a SLEW of other events history has for us is empirical evidence that the past still effects who we are and what we do today.  I believe that many african americans (really ALL americans) should be able to agree this country's history w/ slavery effects what shapes our world today. 

I'm not saying it doesn't have an effect, I am saying that blaming the men that are alive today for the way men treated women 100 years ago is, well, total fucking bull shit. 

Clearly the past effects the present, but to call oneself a feminist and blame men for a past they weren't alive in is not only a bull shit thing to do to them in the name of gender equality, it's also the type of thing that makes them HATE the feminist movement.  Just like when we walk around and say, "The Bloodhound Gang makes this bar an unsafe place for women."  OR when we attack porn as part of a rape culture.

That shit creates a backlash against the feminist movement.  Men hear that and think "fuck you bitch, I wasn't even born then,"  I know that for a fact, I get blamed for slavery by the militants on campus and my reaction is, "fuck you, we didn't even come here until the early 1990s."

So when I say, you look at the present, what's happening now, and say "this is the problem we need to change," it's because you can not change the past, it's a scientific impossibility, and when you bring it up as tool to attack men it cheapens the debate and pisses people off.  Point out the problems today.

Like this problem, the problem that feminists get offended even by other feminists that say "don't use the past against the men that weren't alive to take part in it, in fact, don't even bring it up, even if you aren't using it as a tool in the debate, because all it's going to do is make you seem insane and unreasonable."

In order to change the present you have to address the present.  If you bring up the past it can ONLY be to point out how it has progressed for the better, otherwise it makes people reject even the valid points.

[[Bubbles]]

Irish, I so agree with that. The issue exists in the present. The context exists in the past. I think we need to understand the context to effect the issue. I don't seem to blame the past for the actions of men in the present. I seek to educate men about the fallacies of the logic their species employed against women to justify things like blaming the victim, or refusing abortions to rape victims, or flat out excusing the behavior as "boys being boys." I want then educated on this so that we can hold them to a higher standard and they can no longer plead ignorance as an excuse for abhorrent behavior. I think we are on the same side we just are taking different approaches. I talk to guys in my sociology classes almost daily who don't understand how women see this campus. As a maze of shadowy corridors, underfunded campus police who respond to sexual assault by asking "what were you wearing that night" (as if that gives license), and parking structures that are so far from any help on campus that some girls don't take evening classes out of fear. So if we can educate, perhaps we can not only change the narrative but the culture as well.

[Strong in Heart]

To me the whole idea of America or the West being consumed/dominated by some kind of 'rape culture' is nonsense.

Most Western men look on rape with contempt and rapists are notoriously treated almost as badly as paedophiles even by other criminals.

But I think with mass immigration from countries who look on rape very differently that's changing a bit.

And of course the whole issue of personal responsibility works both ways.

To take some obvious examples - feminists seem to believe that a drunk man is responsible for his actions while a drunk woman is not; that how a woman dresses or behaves has no relevance to whether or not she is raped.

I disagree with both those  points of view. To me either BOTH are EQUALLY responsible or NEITHER. It's just dishonest and sexist to assume a drunk man is responsible and NOT a drunk woman.

And I know from personal experience that - even though we might agree in theory that it should NOT make any difference how a woman dresses, talks or behaves that in the REAL world - as opposed to the cosy middle-class privileged world feminists live in - it DOES make a difference.

I believe we ALL need to show personal responsibility - male or female.

To me the whole 'rape culture' crap is just an excuse.

What we need - and this applies to both genders - is to develop attitudes of mutual respect and consideration.

IMO the problem with Western society is NOT some mythical rape culture - it's the culture of narcissism.

That's the root of most of the problems in our society.

To me the whole idea of America or the West being consumed/dominated by some kind of 'rape culture' is nonsense.

Most Western men look on rape with contempt and rapists are notoriously treated almost as badly as paedophiles even by other criminals.

But I think with mass immigration from countries who look on rape very differently that's changing a bit.

And of course the whole issue of personal responsibility works both ways.

To take some obvious examples - feminists seem to believe that a drunk man is responsible for his actions while a drunk woman is not; that how a woman dresses or behaves has no relevance to whether or not she is raped.

I disagree with both those  points of view. To me either BOTH are EQUALLY responsible or NEITHER. It's just dishonest and sexist to assume a drunk man is responsible and NOT a drunk woman.

And I know from personal experience that - even though we might agree in theory that it should NOT make any difference how a woman dresses, talks or behaves that in the REAL world - as opposed to the cosy middle-class privileged world feminists live in - it DOES make a difference.

I believe we ALL need to show personal responsibility - male or female.

To me the whole 'rape culture' crap is just an excuse.

What we need - and this applies to both genders - is to develop attitudes of mutual respect and consideration.

IMO the problem with Western society is NOT some mythical rape culture - it's the culture of narcissism.

That's the root of most of the problems in our society.

I'll be the first to say that I agree with you, we do not live in a rape culture.  BUT I am agreeing to that out of the core and infinity fucking logical and rational knowledge that unless you are mentally ill movies, television, music and the neighbor's dog do not control your actions and, even if you are mentally ill it's the insanity and not the culture that is controlling you.

And I like to make a point about that because when you blame culture you take responsibility away from the rapist and say that, in some way, culture controlled his actions.

Which leads me to question your logic.  To be as flippant as usual let me ask:  Are you fucking insane?

To take some obvious examples - feminists seem to believe that a drunk man is responsible for his actions while a drunk woman is not; that how a woman dresses or behaves has no relevance to whether or not she is raped.

I disagree with both those  points of view. To me either BOTH are EQUALLY responsible or NEITHER. It's just dishonest and sexist to assume a drunk man is responsible and NOT a drunk woman

Exactly how does being drunk force a man to rape a woman?  Seriously how does her being drunk control the way the man acts and make her equally or even partially responsible being raped?

Does female intoxication somehow control the part of the brain, in surrounding men, helps them to determine the difference between right and wrong?  Or maybe you are implying that when I drink a portion of my mind psychically controls the movements of surrounding men?

I was not drunk when I was gang raped, but there were a lot of drunk women in the house, were they psychically controlling the men that horribly violated me?  Was it a percentage thing?  Like a proportional thing?  If there were less inebriated women in vicinity would less people have raped me?  If there was only one drunk woman at the party would that mean that, with your logic, only one man would have raped me that night?

Because, if your logic there is correct, then all I would need to do to avoid a man raping me again is stay sober and avoid other drunk women.

The thing is, that's not going to work because that is bullshit fucking logic.

And we know it's bullshit fucking logic because the vast majority of men will refuse to fuck shitfaced women that are fucking throwing themselves on them strictly because they do not want to take fucking advantage of them.

A drunk woman is not at all even partially, or as you said "equally" responsible for getting raped.  It is purely the choice that the rapist makes.

So, now let's move on to the part where you supposed it might be the way a woman dresses that makes her equally or partially responsible for being raped.

We will take what happened to me and once more apply your logic to it.

I was dressed casually, in shorts and a Red Sox t-shirt and cap....now all things being equal we will assume that, given the location, the limp dick pillow biting butt monkeys that attacked me were not goddamned Yankees fans. 

And if they were they deserved to rot in hell long before they touched me.

Was it the sensible summer shorts that caused it?  Or maybe the shirt?  Did my Sox t-shirt take control of the men and partially force them to rape me?  I was wearing both a Sox shirt and cap that accounts for two of them.  Now, if less women at the party were wearing less Sox paraphernalia would less men have been involved?

You see where I am going with this.

The point is that if you believe in psychic powers, then yes, the drunk woman psychically controlling half the man and half-forcing him to rape her this making her equally to blame might be true...but clothes are inanimate objects and once you realize that fact you have to totally rule that out.

Otherwise, what you said makes no fucking sense whatsoever because we have free will.

I mean, I have tried to psychically force my will on others and I could never fucking do it.  I can't pull off the Jedi mind trick. 

So that leaves me to wonder if you hear voices in your head that control half of your actions.  If you do, try not to listen to them, they are not the voice of God, they are figments of your imagination...just like the imaginary logic that leads you to believe that rape victims are equally responsible because they somehow controlled half the rapist.

[PenitentGirl]

All feminists believe with regards to sex and intoxication is that if a person is intoxicated enough that they can't give consent than anyone (man or woman) initiating sex with them is raping them.

Men or men in general are not exclusively the one doing the raping and drunk men are not exclusively the one raped. It tends to be that way but isn't always. When I was younger I once saw a girl kissing and touching a virtually passed out guy, at the time I thought it was silly but in retrospect that was definitely a sexual assault.

This sort of thing is one of the few edges of the sword of double standard cuts men more than women, that it is essentially impossible to molest or rape them. I read an article about a judge giving a female student who had sex a sentence of like 30 days, saying it was like dangling candy in front of a child. 

All feminists believe with regards to sex and intoxication is that if a person is intoxicated enough that they can't give consent than anyone (man or woman) initiating sex with them is raping them.

Men or men in general are not exclusively the one doing the raping and drunk men are not exclusively the one raped. It tends to be that way but isn't always. When I was younger I once saw a girl kissing and touching a virtually passed out guy, at the time I thought it was silly but in retrospect that was definitely a sexual assault.

This sort of thing is one of the few edges of the sword of double standard cuts men more than women, that it is essentially impossible to molest or rape them. I read an article about a judge giving a female student who had sex a sentence of like 30 days, saying it was like dangling candy in front of a child. 

I will certainly agree that men get cut more with that double edged sword...and in divorce.

[Strong in Heart]

Irish Girl, I haven't been rude to you and I don't know why you've been rude to me.

I was raped when I was 18 over the longest weekend of my life from Friday night through to Monday morning.

So I do know what rape is like.

Now I'm used to people - especially rad fems - thinking I'm a poseur, a sick bitch or whatever.

Maybe they're right; I prefer to describe myself as a survivor who is still trying to heal myself even sixteen years after the event.

But whether or not a person is a feminist moral positions ought to be at least morally (and logically) consistent.

And the idea that somehow a drunk woman is not responsible and yet a drunk man is just is so obviously illogical and inconsistent that it really does make me even stronger in my belief that the rad fems (and to a lesser extent the more moderate feminists) have just got things wrong.

Now I can accept that either both are responsible or neither but not that only ONE gender is.

To me that's not just misandrist but downright illogical.

And the whole idea that women - like men - don't have to take some kind of personal responsibility for their actions is also IMO just writing a blank cheque out to the whole narcissist culture in which we live.

The problem is not a 'rape culture' but a narcissist culture, a 'me me' culture, an 'I want it and I want it now' culture, a 'it's never MY fault if anything goes wrong; it's always somebody else's fault.'

And I find that not just wimpish but patronising and morally wrong.

It's making out us women are just helpless, useless, pathetic victims.

It's validating every stereotype about us that male chauvinist types put out.

But the answer to male chauvinism is NOT female chauvinism.

If you (and I'm talking the general 'you' here rather than you as an individual) genuinely want a society of equality, fairness, tolerance and compassion (and in spite of some of my wild fantasies I DO want a society like that) then you have to address ALL injustices rather than just demonising 50% of the human race and giving the other half a free pass.

I'm broadly speaking a political liberal in real life (yes, I know in America that means something different but so too does conservative over there from what it means in the rest of the world; US politics is so screwed up and part of the problem in that respect is the misuse of language by political extremists to pretend that things are the opposite of what the words they use mean)

Anyway, I don't want to offend anyone; I've done too much of that over the years with my plain speaking which is one reason I'm not losing my rag but trying to answer calmly and logically even though the ideas you put forward I DO find offensive.

In the same way I find racism or religious bigotry offensive so too I find any kind of sexual bigotry offensive.

But let's hope we can talk about it calmly because you slagged me off and I don't want to retaliate in kind.

Well, if a drunk man is raped...it is the rapist fault.  Him being drunk didn't make the rapist rape him.

The same goes for a drunk woman...if she is raped, it's STILL the rapists fault.

Now if the man is drunk and the woman is drunk, and the man rapes the woman...It's STILL the rapists fault.

And the same can be said in reverse.  If two men are drunk, and one rapes the other...it's STILL only the rapists fault.

It's not radical feminism to put the blame on the rapist, and we can do it no matter what gender.  If a man gets raped...it's still the rapist's fault.

To say that it is partially the victim's fault, no matter what gender, is just reason to be condescending.  It makes no logical sense.

If a man get's raped, no matter what, I will be the first to put ALL the blame on the rapist.

[Algore]

<feminist>
I'd point out that for much of history women were more or less chattel to the male members of their family (their father while growing up and later their husband), and never really were alone or had their own agency or goals independent of their husbands. Therefore, the fact that the historical penalty for rape was quite severe you have to look at it from the perspective of property rights and emasculation. What I'm saying is for most of the history of the world I doubt very highly there was such a thing as called 'date rape', and its historical fact that spousal rape is a very recent idea.

So the only way a woman COULD realistically be raped was if someone intruded onto either a man's home or other place that he considered to be protected and safe enough for his daughter or wife to be unescorted (possibly school once girls started going to school) and then do what amounts to ruining (or at the very least diminishing the value of) his personal property (his daughter or wife) in the very place where he as a masculine provider figure is supposed to be protecting or providing a safe place for.

It's essentially the ancient equivalent of both stealing and calling you a faggot at the same time, so I'm surprised mandatory torture is not prescribed prior to the execution.

In many historical cultures (Rome, etc) this also explains while it is still illegal it is not culturally as big a deal for sex-workers or prostitutes to be raped (see boys will be boys for the modern equivalent), and I would imagine that any situation where today someone old and stupid might try to fraction out blame in percentages as if it was a car accident that most historical societies would just throw up their hands and be like 'WHORE!' and not really care anymore.
</feminist>

I think you make a good point re. history.

You are correct in saying that women were "property" of men - this was basically the case until women had equal rights (which is a comparatively recent thing). If a mans daughter or wife was raped then the offense was against him as the owner of said daughter/wife. If a woman who was not regarded as "owned" by a man were to be violated then it would not likely be regarded with such severity.

 Traditionally in a marriage ceremony the father of the bride "gives" her to the groom. You cannot "give" something that you do not own.

[PenitentGirl]

Well, if a drunk man is raped...it is the rapist fault.  Him being drunk didn't make the rapist rape him.

The same goes for a drunk woman...if she is raped, it's STILL the rapists fault.

Now if the man is drunk and the woman is drunk, and the man rapes the woman...It's STILL the rapists fault.

And the same can be said in reverse.  If two men are drunk, and one rapes the other...it's STILL only the rapists fault.

It's not radical feminism to put the blame on the rapist, and we can do it no matter what gender.  If a man gets raped...it's still the rapist's fault.

To say that it is partially the victim's fault, no matter what gender, is just reason to be condescending.  It makes no logical sense.

If a man get's raped, no matter what, I will be the first to put ALL the blame on the rapist.

You're absolutely correct on every point here.

It goes beyond the scope of the thread to really talk about radfems too much except to say that based on my debates with them on a couple of defunct BBS' they in many cases have an extremely skeptical view of whether things like male rape victims actually happen, and if they accept that it occurs at all they might tend to suggest that the only reason it happens is due to Patriarchy and social gender constructs, or other nonsense (I actually had one claim that the only way a woman would commit sexual abuse at all is due to conscious or unconscious 'penis envy' due to a clinical level Electra Complex -- i.e. official name for "daddy issues", if other readers aren't aware -- which can only happen due to the patriarchal family unit. So if anything, the fact that sometimes, very rarely a woman might commit sexual assault is more evidence that she was right anyway.  )

No, we don't. The concept of a rape culture, at least in this country, does not exist; it's a myth.