"Yes, your friend may be a rapist!" - really?

[siead_lietrathua]

It really shook me up. I called campus police, who said there wasn't anything they could do other than to talk to him and tell him to leave me alone, because he hadn't actually touched me or gotten into my room.

i want to note first that it sucks you were dealing with an asshole, and i'm not disparaging your circumstances. i just want to note one thing to this part. why didn't you call the police?
campus security are really like mall guards (YMMV). they can detain people, but they can't go about pressing charges. the real cops need to be called for that.
security probably couldn't do anything because of their limitations, but the real police could have slapped him with a harassment charge, and restraining order.

i see this a bit with conventions. people talking about needing harassment policies and more security. but in cases where the law is being broken, just call the cops! that's what they are for, and they tend to be fairly prevalent around campus towns.

[Sleepwalker]

semi-tangent: it makes me sad that articles like this exist, warning men what situations to avoid to keep from being falsely accused of rape. it's terrible that people need how-to guides on how to protect themselves from liars.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/miscella...se-rape-claim/

Oh, THAT guy's website.

The guy who said this about rape:

"I have ideas about women who spend evenings in bars hustling men for drinks, playing on their sexual desires … And the women who drink and make out, doing everything short of sex with men all evening, and then go to his apartment at 2:00 a.m.. Sometimes both of these women end up being the “victims” of rape.

But are these women asking to get raped?

In the most severe and emphatic terms possible the answer is NO, THEY ARE NOT ASKING TO GET RAPED.

They are freaking begging for it.

Damn near demanding it.

And all the outraged PC demands to get huffy and point out how nothing justifies or excuses rape won’t change the fact that there are a lot of women who get pummeled and pumped because they are stupid (and often arrogant) enough to walk though life with the equivalent of a I’M A STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH – PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads."


Yep, women deserve to get beaten and raped because they are begging for it. You feel sorry for this dude. Kay.

[siead_lietrathua]

sleepwalker: the site is not all one author. including the whoooole tab of articles submitted by women! and some of them submitting writers are harsher than others. since you didn't post the article you're talking about, i can't know if it's the same person for both articles.
considering the article i linked is posted by a organization, and not an individual, i would really doubt it.

hell, considering some of the articles on that site are intentionally written to be sarcastic as hell, i can't even tell if you're taking that quote out of context. for all i know that quote is them disparaging the people that call them rape-apologists. before that quote it could say "i bet they think we talk like this" or a "what do they think i'm going to talk like?"
sorry but i'm not gonna take an out of the air quote from you as truth, especially since i doubt you've read much of that site period. i need context dude, context!

speaking of context, did i say i feel sorry for that particular dude... hmm.... *reads own post*
"it makes me sad that articles like this exist, warning men what situations to avoid to keep from being falsely accused of rape. it's terrible that people need how-to guides on how to protect themselves from liars. "

looks like that's not what i said at all. well golly-ge, who woulda thought. looks like i said that i'm sad that we live in a culture where we have to worry about protecting ourselves from liars. not that i'm sorry for any particular person let alone the guy that runs a fairly decent (if not slightly jaded) MRM site.

but hey, good argument against something i never posted. thumbs up.

[Hyena Dandy]

Oh, THAT guy's website.

The guy who said this about rape:

"I have ideas about women who spend evenings in bars hustling men for drinks, playing on their sexual desires … And the women who drink and make out, doing everything short of sex with men all evening, and then go to his apartment at 2:00 a.m.. Sometimes both of these women end up being the “victims” of rape.

But are these women asking to get raped?

In the most severe and emphatic terms possible the answer is NO, THEY ARE NOT ASKING TO GET RAPED.

They are freaking begging for it.

Damn near demanding it.

And all the outraged PC demands to get huffy and point out how nothing justifies or excuses rape won’t change the fact that there are a lot of women who get pummeled and pumped because they are stupid (and often arrogant) enough to walk though life with the equivalent of a I’M A STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH – PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads."


Yep, women deserve to get beaten and raped because they are begging for it. You feel sorry for this dude. Kay.

First Point: If we ignore everything on a site, on the grounds that someone on the site wrote something horrible, or someone in an organization wrote something horrible, we need to discount a lot of places. Including Jezebel, since they had that article about how funny it is that women beat their husbands.

Second point: What you said was totally irrelevant to what she said.

Third point: I can feel sorry for people even if they're also assholes sometimes. I can say that I feel sorry for Frank Miller, for having obviously been severely traumatized by 9/11, without praising Holy Terror. I can feel sorry for the discrimination experienced by black nationalists, without thinking that they're right that white people are literally devils.

[Gravekeeper]

In fairness to both sides:

A) That guy, and half of his editorial staff, are assholes. Though that doesn't mean all the contributors are assholes.

B) Per a European study false rape allegations increased alongside the rate of female alcohol consumption.

Edit:

C) Okay the guy that wrote that article is an asshole too. But conversely, someone else on the site wrote an article saying he was a fucking jerk. So I guess the editorial staff is at least balanced. >.>

[siead_lietrathua]

First Point: If we ignore everything on a site, on the grounds that someone on the site wrote something horrible, or someone in an organization wrote something horrible, we need to discount a lot of places. Including Jezebel, since they had that article about how funny it is that women beat their husbands.

hell, just think about feminist groups like SCUM. *shudder*
if any movement should have a bad rap, it's one associated with those lunatics.

tangent ahead:

the worst of the MRM may be seen as 'rape apologists' or misogynistic assholes. they say some harsh things, and make make some pretty inappropriate jokes at times.
but at least they don't make ads like this:
(trigger warning, NSFW, violence, disgusting, WTF, etc)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tQSOlF9ZZM



humorous sidenote: i don't know if anyone else notices it, but the firefox spellchecker knows misogyny as a word, but keeps trying to change misandry to 'Melisandra'.

[Peppergirl]

Some of the comments in this thread have come quite close to what I'd consider personal attacks and name-calling.

Lets dial it back a bit. Remember, the rules here are much more lax than CS, but 'lax' and 'non-existent' are two different things. One can engage in a lively debate without it having to devolve into mud-slinging.

Thanks!

[Canarr]

C) Okay the guy that wrote that article is an asshole too. But conversely, someone else on the site wrote an article saying he was a fucking jerk. So I guess the editorial staff is at least balanced. >.>

Well, he basically writes the guy is a jerk for opening his eyes about the huge danger of women bringing false rape accusations against men. So, not truly... balanced.

totally agree with you. i think the main benefit of teaching them is it takes away the 'but i didn't know' excuse.

That is a good point, yes. It's certainly important to eliminate ignorance in both boys and girls at a young age. Although I believe the guy who told his four-year-old son that trying to kiss a female classmate without asking her first is rape, might have been a little over the top.

semi-tangent: it makes me sad that articles like this exist, warning men what situations to avoid to keep from being falsely accused of rape. it's terrible that people need how-to guides on how to protect themselves from liars.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/miscella...se-rape-claim/

Well.. some points in the article aren't bad (don't sleep with married women, don't cheat on your own spouse, be careful about sleeping with people you don't know very well) - but the underlying tone strikes me as needlessly suspicious. And it ends with a last example that basically says, "But all these other tips we just gave you are meaningless, anyway, because the woman might just be a lying bitch and make shit up because she simply doesn't care about whatever happens to you!".

It's more subtle, but in the end just as bad as the article I originally quoted. The vast majority of men aren't rapists, and the vast majority of women aren't lying, conniving bitches out to take advantage of and destroy poor, helpless men. But it seems that anyone trying to argue some kind of middle ground on this issue can't really do so without being accused as a "mangina" (men) or a "traitor" (women). It's so choked in anger and bitterness from both sides, it's madness.

So I get what rape victims are saying. I really do. I don't blame them for not wanting their rapist to be on campus, going to class, etc. But the problem is, you have to prove the crime before you can take away someone's right of free association. So while I agree it should not have to be the victim who leave, if it really bothers her that much, that's what has to happen unless she has such a strong support system (like I did) that she can feel safe. And a lot of rape victims end up isolated because their accused attacker is popular.

It sucks. I don't know what the solution is, but throwing out the Constitution is not it.

Very true. But as long as "Rape is a tool designed and used by The Man to intimidate and suppress The Woman!" meets "Rapists are assholes and criminals, not all men!" head-on, there seems little hope for a solution.

This article raises a few interesting points, I think. An article such as this one, however ... not so much. If the school's reports of the number of rapes per year doesn't fit our one-in-five estimate, then clearly, the school isn't looking hard enough, or even suppressing cases? Seriously?

As Tracey Vitchers, a spokesperson for Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER), told Shire:
"It's unreasonable to think any school has zero sexual assault or crime." Schools self-report Clery Act numbers, she explains, so there are a number of potential loopholes in the tracking. "There are some accusations of schools under-reporting or misrepresenting. Rather than labeling something as sexual assault, they may label it just as assault so it looks less severe," she says. A school with zero forcible sexual offenses may also indicate that "people aren't reporting because of other barriers."

Is it me, or is there something wrong with this world view?

[Gravekeeper]

Well, he basically writes the guy is a jerk for opening his eyes about the huge danger of women bringing false rape accusations against men. So, not truly... balanced.

Admittedly, I only got through half of it before my eyes glazed over.

Is it me, or is there something wrong with this world view?

Aren't something like 30 universities currently under investigation for grossly mishandled rape cases on campus?

[wolfie]

are the real* male rapists out there going to listen to the women they see at meat? or will they listen to the outnumbering pack of males behind them ready to rip their headsballs off?

Fixed that one for you.

[Hyena Dandy]

Aren't something like 30 universities currently under investigation for grossly mishandled rape cases on campus?

Yes. But notice the verbal trickery in the Jezebel article? It talks about the number of colleges that report rape, and the 1 in 5 women are sexually assauled. Problem is, "rape" and "sexual assault" aren't the same, at least in the survey that 1 in 5 number comes from. That number includes "Being kissed without wanting to." Which means that for their 1 in 5 number, this is the sort of thing that campuses should be reporting as rape.

Edit: Also, I'd like to point out that Jezebel is a site that finds spousal abuse funny, as long as you're hitting men.

[Gravekeeper]

Edit: Also, I'd like to point out that Jezebel is a site that finds spousal abuse funny, as long as you're hitting men.

Yeah, I read Jezebel from time to time. Some of its writers mean well but the site taken as a whole is painfully hypocritical to the point of satire.

[Canarr]

Yes. But notice the verbal trickery in the Jezebel article? It talks about the number of colleges that report rape, and the 1 in 5 women are sexually assauled. Problem is, "rape" and "sexual assault" aren't the same, at least in the survey that 1 in 5 number comes from. That number includes "Being kissed without wanting to." Which means that for their 1 in 5 number, this is the sort of thing that campuses should be reporting as rape.

The Washington Post gives an interesting view into the source of the one-in-five statistic, and why it's not the universally applicable number it's used as.

It's certainly not usable as grounds for the public condemnation of any school or college that doesn't report a "corresponding" number of rapes in their own facilities.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

As Tracey Vitchers, a spokesperson for Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER), told Shire:
"It's unreasonable to think any school has zero sexual assault or crime." Schools self-report Clery Act numbers, she explains, so there are a number of potential loopholes in the tracking. "There are some accusations of schools under-reporting or misrepresenting. Rather than labeling something as sexual assault, they may label it just as assault so it looks less severe," she says. A school with zero forcible sexual offenses may also indicate that "people aren't reporting because of other barriers."

Is it me, or is there something wrong with this world view?

Yes and no. No is mostly my answer due to the use of the word "may" which is correct in this case. I think the numbers of men who actually rape is higher than 1% and less than 6% so the idea that zero rapes occur with a student body of more than 1000 just turns into a math problem. But if a school has 500 or 200 students? It's not really unreasonable because it's believable even if it's unlikely. You start getting into factors and you start straining credulity. Yes in the sense her first statement negates a school with a small class size or one that in the future may quantify the predictors of sexual violence and minimized their exposure (this is futurist, not something I think actually happens now.)

But it's sort of the same logic that pisses me off about feminists and MRA's playing semantics games about "false accusations" and rapes in a "not as bad as" fallacy. They're both bad, and statistics generally bear out that both sides have a point. One is far less likely but it's not a non-problem. And because both sides won't take the other seriously over what is an asinine argument (seriously, you need sides for this?!), the whole thing seems to move forward in a very knee jerk manner. I still remember Jezebel essentially having a damn near identity crisis when the lead singer of Bright Eyes was falsely accused.

[sophie]

Some rape statistics include things like a 19 year old having consensual sex with his 17 year old girlfriend and her parents get upset and accuse him of rape.

I have noticed that some high school and college age girls use rape allegations as revenge or even for attention. (this is one of the reasons I hate some of the people i when to high school with)

Are there rapists out there? Of course. Will some women get raped? Yes. But treating every man like he's Jack the Ripper wont solve that. By pushing things like this radical feminists are making a mockery of real rape victims,they're slowly eroding the meaning of the word until it can mean everything from a quick glance to rape, and the word rapist is for people, male or female who rape a person or people, not some dude going to go buy milk.