The R Word

[Anachronism]

This is the single most important article I have read on the escapist, and there is nothing more I can say about it.

This. I don't think I can really express how important this article was, and how much courage it must have taken to write it. There were points where I came close to crying. I know I'm not really adding anything to the discussion because there have been so many comments, but I felt like I had to comment. This is an article that every gamer should read.

 

[Anonymous]

Very well. For all intents and purposes as you have stated as well as the mod--Susan--I apologize for the accusation. Everyone takes situations differently however.

Apology accepted. No hard feelings.

 

[Therumancer]

Your taking a shotgun to the subject in hopes of hitting something. I'll start out in being blunt in saying (as I've said before) that I myself was raped by a gay man when I was six. In my cause though I blocked it out, which doesn't make it any easier when you know it happened.

Your name is familiar; I've seen you do alot of arguing typically against gay rights in many different threads. Seeing your name in a gay thread usually just pissed me off to the point of simply not reading your posts anymore but now I'm just expressing genuine curiosity. I just spent the past couple of hours debating if I should even bring this up but I just have to know: how do you know the man who raped you was a gay man? I mean was he someone you knew or was it something you found out later? Because reading that statement by itself and knowing your post history, I can't help but feel you might be projecting your feelings on pedophiles, rape and your personal experience onto homosexuals.

I don't paticularly want to de-rail this thread, but I'll say this much:

The gist of what your saying is pretty much loaded. The basic idea being that if someone like me has been victimized, we're effectively too biased to take a rational stance on the subject. If we haven't been victimized we're ignorant and "how could we know" based simply on rhetoric.

I will say this much. What happened to me has lead to me putting a lot of effort into learning about the subject, the gay community, and how things actually are. I know more about homosexuals, the gay rights movement, and the gay community, culture, and subcultures than most gay people within that culture do. It's kind of funny but in the past I've shocked people with some of the things I know, due to the assumption that someone who wasn't gay couldn't possibly know those things the way I did (and no, I won't go into details here). You'd be surprised at what you can do when properly motivated.

A point many people who argue gay rights with me miss is that I'm not talking bunk when I say that my position on the subject has waffled over the years before settling on my current point of view. Something based on what information I've had, and looking at the big picture, as well as the people I've known. It shocks some people think that I might have actually supported the rights of gay men at one time, and that I have to be lying about it, but it happens to be true. When I was in college I probably sat in on more ABIGAYLES meetings than most gay people did. My interests also caused me to look into certain trends and patterns of behavior more closely than most people have done when given a brief.

Despite what people might want to think, the reason why an arguement with me on this subject can't be "won" is because I happen to be right. They miss the point that I was sitting where a lot of the people argueing with me are decades ago, and I know what they think they know, and also realize that if they ever really looked into the subject with any kind of actual interest and effort, they would become me. Hence the constant prodding for people to do their own research, and do their own digging and such. It's the kind of situation where someone can't just tell you the truth, it has to be gained from experience. Of course it takes a decent amount of effort and without a motivating force like mine a lot of people are just going to take things at face value, and let's face it, tolerance is the easier path since it doesn't involve actually having to do anything, especially nowadays when there is already inertia for it.

I was more curious than trying to accuse you of anything, among your many, many, many (over 8000) posts I know you statistically take a more or less neutral stance on gays but then again I've also seen you call gay people sexual deviants and say other vicious things and the lingering negative remembrance of those post far outweigh your neutral ones. So can you really blame me for asking?

Well Deviant just means someone who deviates from the norm, which they do. Pretty much anything other than heterosexual, missionary position sex is "deviant", a term which includes pretty much everyone from homosexuality to BDSM, to *ahem* other things. That said I don't remember having used that term, but I might have.

Now I have accused gay men of being sexual predators, which many people take offense to, and which I will not get into here since it would derail the thread. That's something that comes from a lot of experience and observation, a lot of which came about from me doing surveillance type work professionally, as well as having access to information that the typical person in the public doesn't have at the moment since in some cases it can border on "trade secrets" of sort. I don't see any reason to deny it, unlike most people who are simply hate mongers or reacting because of what they heard in church or whatever, I'm convinced of these facts based on things I've actually seen as well as what I've heard in what amount to unbiased sources (the primary motivation of which being pure capitalism as opposed to any kind of social agenda. These facts simply being another variable to be juggled, without any real care being made, since the guys gathering the information would literally do anything for money, if they could legally do something really disgusting like make money by pimping out toddlers or cooking and serving infants to cannibals, they probably would, being more or less neutral to anything no matter how repugnant in order to make money).

 

[Barciad]

I just had to post a link to it on 'The Guardian' and kindly ask them if they could repost it there. This is an article that needs to be read, and sad to say, far too many people would prefer not to demean themselves by going onto a 'games site'. Yes, even they need to read it.

 

[Darkmantle]

Snip

My point was that people don't go on XBox live and tell their opponents that they are "going to murder them" or that they have "murdered them".

yes they do.... All the time... Do you even play on live? It sounds like you are going on hear say.

 

[shadowstriker86]

"I'm an engineer, and I solve practical problems." I use this phrase alot and I think i'll use it again here. It sucks being reminded of something that happened to you in the past and no reason why it should ever happen at all, so I think I might have a solution to solving the reminder part while gaming after reading this article: Create New A New Slang. Ya i know its not as easy as it sounds but if someone can create a word or phrase or something that has more impact than rape, people will use that slang instead of...well you get the idea.

 

[Therumancer]

In reality every sexual interaction is supposed to be consentual, however people, and I'd even venture most people, have fantasies about non-consentual sex with whatever kind of person they are interested in. Guys have their dominatrixs and amazons, girls have their randy shieks, pirate captains, and cattle barons and such. This stuff is sold by the truckload. It's adult material because it takes an adult to be able to seperate the fantasy from the reality and understand that things don't work like that in reality.

I agree. But to live out such a fantasy within a controlled environment, usually including safewords, a good chat beforehand and an evaluation afterwards IS consensual, this is called consensual nonconsent. As lang as you have safewords, even a "No" or "Stop" can be ignored.

I know several feminists of all genders who enjoy rapeplay, degradation or hurt.

But all of them only enjoy these things on their terms. Only few people enjoy to those things from strangers.

I don't have a problem with movies about rape, actually. There are a lot of good ones out there. And I don't have a problem with BDSM porn, as long as the actors are treated alright.
What sets me off are movies that include nonconsensual behaviour, which is not depicted as such. Comedies where people are degraded, and where the joke is not on the one who degrades (see "The Dictator", though this movie is also not perfect) but on the degraded.

Some romance novel written for women about some shiek or whatever (represented artistically by models like Fabio, or early Antonio Banderas) capturing some young, pretty thing, and using her for sex while she's taken to all these exotic places, perhaps with some trivial plot thrown in. The differance here is that while the sex isn't consentual to start, it's something everyone involved winds up enjoying, and usually turns into love, that harem girl usually winds up becoming the queen (or at least a favored mistress with a lot of power) by the end of the story for example. That's NOT a blueprint for a healthy real life relationship, which is exactly why it comes with an adult's only label as much as the actual sexual acts themselves.

Those plots are worse, because the message is "she wants it, or will want it at some point, she just doesn't know yet"

A line between that kind of thing, or the male version with guys being used by Amazons (or whatever) much the same way, and things like "Rapelay" which is the current textbook whipping boy does exist. That line is that "Rapelay" is all about revenge and the entire point is that the girls on the receiving end don't enjoy it, as the protaganist rapes his way up the line of a family, which puts it in a differant territory as none of the victims wind up genuinely enjoying themselves in any lasting fashion. Other examples like "Battle Raper" are less ambigious, because if that's the series I'm thinking of, I'm not a fan (due it it kind of blowing chips) but if I remember the plotline is basically a fighting tournament where the winners get to use the losers sexually in addition to advancing. Despite "rape" in the title, pretty much everyone involved knows the rules and more or less consented to it by entering into those battles to begin with. It's not exactly a deep title or a common sense set up, but you really can't say it's paticularly offensive either.

I checked out Battle Raper on wiki and moby right now, but it doesn't say anywhere what happens when the guy loses. And you're right, to some point this still questionable game is way better than rapelay, where consent is definitely out of the question. I know that "loser gets dominated" exists in RL as well.

A good part of why I am going after feminists is the dual standard. If you take a story about a Shiek who takes women as concubines, who finds that one special girl who he falls in love with while using her, finds the feeligns are mutual with, and eventually marries, along with whatever else pads the story out, if it's direct at men feminists will scream it's a horrible work of rape-horror that needs to be banned. The same basic story appears with someone like "Fabio" on the cover and marketing directed at women, and feminists will generally ignore it.

Nope, most people I know will despise them all the same.

It should also be noted (to answer this for all those who raised this question) that while feminism was at one time about equality, it's not entirely about power coming at the expense of men, which is why it has a dual standard. The basic message inherant in going after one face of things but not the other is simply that men can't handle it, so society should keep us in line. To be honest, decades ago Feminism had a valid point where women were outright prohibited from voting, or doing specific things for no paticularly good reason. Today, without those valid crusades, it's all about things like trying to basically shackle men because of our physical differances and how they give us an unfair advantage. Demands that standards be lowered for pretigious jobs with physical requirements so women can do them, or even in some cases have job performance standards lowered or removed when certain biological things like childbirth come up. The demand that people overlook the differances between men and women entirely, and oftentimes in exclusion of common sense.

Sexism is over just like racism ended in 1870. I've encountered sexist structures whithin the most anarchist emancipatory movements, because there's a sexist in all of us, including myself. We all were raised with sexist role models, and even if you don't want it, it shows. And denial as often encountered with self-proclaimed feminists only makes it worse.

Today, it isn't about those obvious things like driving a car, going to the army or voting.
Today, it is about subtle things. The way we behave, speak, assume roles. And no, I don't subscribe to everything that's been done in the name of feminism.

Along with this you have feminists in many cases going so far as to claim that due to men being bigger, stronger, and still in control of most of society, there is no such thing as consentual sex and all women are rape victims because they are not in a position of enough control to begin with in order to consent. That is how utterly bonkers the feminist definition of what constitutes rape increasingly is. No matter how consentual it is, it's still rape, since it can't be any
other way. A no-win scenario created by their own inherant logic.

Yup, they exist. We're sorry.

In short, I don't take feminism seriously as a position.

Then you maybe didn't meet the right feminists. Most feminists I know are fun, pro-sex, active, intelligent people.

No, it just means that the people your referring to call themselves feminists but aren't actually feminists. The battle for equally long since won (a few decades ago, not to the beginning of the 20th century), the idea of feminism and advancing women by definition entails putting them ahead of men. If your a believe in equality, your not a feminist, just
a regular person.

That said when it comes to fiction, your correct that the "message" in "rape fantasy" can easily be misinterpeted, hence why it's adults only (as I pointed out) as it takes an adult to diffeentiate it being fantasy from some kind of lesson that could be applied IRL. That said, it's a common thing because while it might not be for everyone, it's something a LOT of people like at least as fantasy (and understanding it to be such). The point mostly being that going after rape.. as a blanket declaration, is a bad idea, context does matter, and yes it can be highly subjective as to what is appropriate and isn't, which is one of the reasons why the law should stay well away from speech matters like this because laws by their nature cannot be subjective if they are going to function (not that we're really talking about the law).

Again, as I said, if you could possibly describe the scene as being "ravished" then chances are there isn't going to be a problem, consentual or not within the story. On the other hand if it seems like vengeance porn, well that's something else entirely. It's the differance between say Anne Rice's "Claiming Of Sleeping Beauty" series (which is pretty famous and widely read), and say "Rapelay". Both are non-consentual erotic works. The differance is that Beauty really enjoys her plight (eventually) and it's all about that, in Rapelay nobody enjoys themselves except for the sadistic protaganist who is out for some misogynistic vengeance if I remember from the plot description. Despite the title (as I mentioned) I don't think "Battle Raper" even involves rape, since if I remember (I was trying to find a synopsis and character guide but I couldn't) pretty much everyone willingly got involved in that "tournament" knowing what it was all about, technically making it consentual.

Otherwise, "Invisible Knapsack" arguements are, and always will be bunk. The idea that society is uncosciously bigoted against whatever group you happen to be part of due to tradition or whatever. It's a common arguement used by pretty much any group looking for attention, women, ethnic, religious, etc... but the thing is that "invisible knapsack" arguements can be made on behalf of just about any group, including the "evil" male white majority that all the other groups complain about. You can point at any failing or situation and then find a way to point to society as what's to blame, for just about anything. The differance between a crackpot conspiricy theory, and invisible knapsack arguements, is simply that those argueing about the knapsack usually have the brains to use sociological terms and arguements to point to the problem, rather than an ambigious "them" or pointing to a very specific, large group of people and ascribing it a direct motive. In the end an invisible knapsack arguement comes down to ranting about how everyone is out to get you and oppress you, it's just you try and argue that they don't realize they are doing it, or can't be blamed due to societal inertia. It's all bunk when you get down to it, as today in sociology they will typically explain why such arguements don't hold up, among them that a lot of that is pretty much society "working as intended" when your actually a minority (ie you shouldn't be surprised to be treated as one, if you are one, and the society your in outnumbers you). With women it's a touchier subject, as a lot of the "bigotry" comes from treating women as generally weaker and more fragile than men (which is true incidently) which comes down to jobs and allowances, or how people choose not to ignore various biological issues (childbirth, etc...) in dealing with them overall. Today the kinds of arguements you see made by women are about how if it's suspected a woman is going to have a kid she won't be promoted to a position of authority due to the division it causes, and otherwise effecting employment. Women argue that an employer should not be able to consider such things because wanting to have a kid, and eventually doing so, is part of being a woman, and employers should have to deal with that. On the other hand employers argue that they expect all their workers to put the job first, especially at a high level, and that means a woman has to put family or the desire for one on hold. It's one of the big debates within society. That's an actual, straightforward issue with common sense concerns based on reality, not some kind of invisible social inertia. Ditto for issues about whether physical standards (running, lifting, jumping, etc...) for women should be lowered to remove the "barrier" from them doing specific jobs and other things, rather than simply letting them do the job if they happen to meet those standards (which is usually pretty unusual for a woman to do). I'm not going to get into passing judgement or argueing the specifics here, I'm simply saying that this is what's left, and it's not any kind of "invisible knapsack" type bigotry.

 

[Therumancer]

The feminist arguements also come down to a dual standard as to what should be allowed. The basic arguement being that it's okay for women to produce, and read books about being ravished by pirates or whatever, but it's not okay for men to create or read the same thing.

...snip...

Feminism sucks because it by and large represents a dual standard, and the arguement that girls should be able to do things that get guys branded freaks or wierdos.

Well, to be perfectly fair you're overgeneralizing feminism. The feminists who fight so that women get paid equal wages for equal work shouldn't be lumped into the same group as those who try to scandalize things in the media by talking about 'objectification'.

Whether you agree with it or not, there's a huge difference between fighting something as concrete as a discrepancy in pay between two people who have the same job and the same hours by trying to get certain pieces of legislation passed, and fighting a vague cultural war in which the ultimate goal is to change people's "perceptions" or "prejudices". Not only are the goals of the latter enterprise vague, but the effects of the things that they are trying to combat are hardly proven.

(In case it isn't obvious, I support the former, but am cynical of the latter. I, for one, wouldn't allow my daughters, if I had any, to spend too much of their time playing dress-up or doing other things that might make them think that their worth lies in their appearance. I also wouldn't enter into a relationship in which I didn't consider my partner an intellectual equal. However, I can't help but feel that the constant complaints about pop-culture are both counter-productive and silly. A woman who was raised properly isn't going to be a slave to the images in the media. The real thing at fault is bad parenting.)

As far as the double standard goes, I can hardly speak for these people, but I imagine quite a few of them would argue that romance novels are as just as bad as their male equivalents. Others might argue that it isn't the same for men as it is for women because of the entrenched patriarchy. I won't defend or even suppose that I am presenting these arguments successfully. But I do think you're overgeneralizing a bit.

Well when it comes to things like Romance Novels, the thing there is that both genders are into the same basic thing. If anything the big differance is that it's acceptable for women to read them, but less so for men. Your typical "romance" novel from the romance section and some porno book from the porn section are pretty much the same exact thing, covering the same basic material when you get down to it. Actually I think the actual differance might be is that despite the perceptions the stuff girls read is a bit more "hardcore" than the actual porn, which sounds shocking until you've ever had the (mis)fortune of listening to the locker room chat of both guys and girls and realize who is actually worse. When it comes to some of these things like romance novels that get attacked as enforcing a negative stereotype of feminimity or whatever, I think people tend to overlook them being universal behaviors that don't clearly fit on one side of the gender gap. It's sort of like porn in general, both genders consume it in more or less equal proportions, it's just considered taboo (freaky)
for men. Some girl shows up with a book with Fabio on the cover dressed as an erotic pirate and some girl in a torn up dress tied to the mast of his ship about be be ravished and nobody thinks anything of it, some guy pulls out a book with a dude bound to the mast of a ship and some gorgeous lady dressed as an erotic pirate about to ravish him, and everyone is liable to treat him like a freak, "that's not appropriate reading material for the break room".

The thing is that there really isn't an entrenched patriarchy so much as there is human society. Overall the genders aren't really all that differant, other than women bearing the children and being physically less capable than the men on average, which does lead to the more physically capable side of things having more of a prescence in the work force. Likewise the process of bearing children is not exactly quick and easy, and women doing that is another thing that has to be considered, and it DOES very much come up during employment since a woman might very well be out of comission for a number of months and then have to radically re-asses her priorities at nearly any time. In general with a guy you don't have to worry about the possibility he's going to show up tomorrow and say "oh yeah, I'm pregnant" and have his rate of reliability suddenly change. All of this very much influances things like wages which are in part based on perceptions of reliability. Now granted from a certain perspective it's not FAIR, I mean a woman didn't ask to be born a woman, but at the same time it is a reality and saying that an employer shouldn't be allowed to consider the obvious is pretty stupid as well. It's not a conflict I'm going to try and sort through in detail and give solid judgements on, simply laeaving it at "it exists" and that it's a major issue because it's not easily resolved.... and the same applies to a lot of the gender issues that exist. It's not patriachy, or bigotry, or anything else as much as reality.

Feminists are those who by definition push the interests of women, with equality in a societal sense, there is nothing left to push besides trying to get an advantage over men. Those who argue in favor of equality for women are NOT feminists, they are just women. Of course the term does seem to be heavily misused because it carries a degree of power with
it. A feminist is the kind of person who instead of argueing points like the above on one side or the other would argue that men should say be unable to hold any position of authority whatsoever due to their inherant physical abillities meaning there is no other way of women ever having power unless they have it all. A point which goes hand in hand with rants about how with men being stronger, all sex, no matter how seemingly consentual, is effectively rape since true equality is impossible and without equality there cannot be consenting equals... so to avoid rape women have to be given all the societal power to perhaps counterbalance the physical power. Simply put actual feminism borders on the absolutly insane nowadays, because with equality and the state of the actual arguements (which are kind of petty compared to what the issues used to be... you know fighting over wages and biological considerations in the workplace, as opposed to say... the right to own property, or not be considered the property of a husband), there really isn't anything left to crusade for. Feminism achieved every reasonable goal it had set, so now all that's left is for it to set increasingly insane ones.

 

[Therumancer]

Super huge wall o' text snip

Okay, dude... while I do agree with a lot of what you're saying, and you clearly put a lot of thought into it...

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS ARTICLE. This article was about someone baring his soul to the Internet, telling about a terrible experience in his past. And you decided to go and do your own thing, prattling on about the miserable failure that is modern feminism.

A little sensitivity to the topic at hand (that is, "gamer" culture's issues with the word 'rape') would be nice.

Actually if you bothered to read what I've said I did cover the subject and the usage of the word "rape". Feminism and such was simply a side point I mentioned in connection to it, largely because feminism has a lot to do with how the term is defined and demonized. People responded about the comments on feminism, and I responded to them, etc... so don't point fingers at me. I've gotten responses to other aspects of what I said as well.

Before going off on me I'd imagine you (and others) might want to actually read what I say, and track the flow of conversation through the posts.

You might also notice that in responding to a comment on gay rights, I haven't responded to the troll trying to pick a fight due to not wanting to derail the thread onto that topic simply because I answered someone's queries about my own experiences.

I don't mind the criticism, but don't point fingers at me for things that aren't my fault. My initial statement was pretty well balanced and feminism was just mentioned in support of my overall comments.

I'll also say that while I disagree with the article writer on things, I haven't actually attacked them, but rather some of the points being made. No offense, but if you bear your soul on the internet as an article attached to a site with a comments system/forum your inviting criticism and challenges. If the OP couldn't handle it, I doubt he would have said anything.

Heck, I've given my opinion on a number of contreversial topics, on a site that I know isn't friendly to my point of view. Including some very personal bits that have gotten smacked down and tossed through a blender. I get trolls following me around on topics because of of being moderatly anti-gay men. I deal with it, and stand by what I said, and was prepared to deal with the fallout so I don't go screaming every time someone thinks they are being clever by dredging something up.... and really, what I've said at my worst here has been pretty even handed on the topic, nothing at all like some of the garbage I have to deal with.

In short, I might generally be seen as a forum villain, but your services as a white knight aren't needed here for the moment... and probably won't ever be needed where I'm concerned.

 

[TAdamson]

Snip

My point was that people don't go on XBox live and tell their opponents that they are "going to murder them" or that they have "murdered them".

yes they do.... All the time... Do you even play on live? It sounds like you are going on hear say.

Well it's appropriate in the context, you are going to kill them in the game. But I have never heard anybody refer to it as "murder". It's more of a "I'm gonna getchu" "Imma gunna kill u" thing.

You also wouldn't say "I'm going to murder/kill you" while playing Madden or FIFA. But people do say I'm going to rape you in that context.


People say "rape" when it's inappropriate. They are trying to demean their opponent further than the point of actually killing them. Or they are referring to a punishing long-lasting task. ie. "The restaurant staff got raped last night. They're exhusted."

If you actually compare "rape" to a similar act like "torture"; apart from the occasional use of the adjective "torturous" torture isn't really used as a word out of context.

 

[Darkmantle]

Snip

My point was that people don't go on XBox live and tell their opponents that they are "going to murder them" or that they have "murdered them".

yes they do.... All the time... Do you even play on live? It sounds like you are going on hear say.

Well it's appropriate in the context, you are going to kill them in the game. But I have never heard anybody refer to it as "murder". It's more of a "I'm gonna getchu" "Imma gunna kill u" thing.

You also wouldn't say "I'm going to murder/kill you" while playing Madden or FIFA. But people do say I'm going to rape you in that context.


People say "rape" when it's inappropriate. They are trying to demean their opponent further than the point of actually killing them. Or they are referring to a punishing long-lasting task. ie. "The restaurant staff got raped last night. They're exhusted."

If you actually compare "rape" to a similar act like "torture"; apart from the occasional use of the adjective "torturous" torture isn't really used as a word out of context.

Man, I hear people say murder all the time in reference to sports, like watching hockey with my buddies.

"wow, the leafs are getting murdered out there tonight, just, totally destroyed..... damn"
Or about work
"man, these 12 hour shifts are murder" (friend who works the kitchen at pizza place)
about school
"these test are killing me!" or "those exams are going to be the end of you"


I find the two words are used almost interchangeably in those contexts, with some sentence restructuring of course.

 

[Miles Duffield]

Three congratulations are in order, first to the bravery and skill of the writer. Thank you, whoever you are, for sending this in. This has enlightened me to no end.

2nd, to The Escapist for publishing this, and putting it at the top of the website so that I, and everyone else found it. Thank you, you guys are doing your jobs very well, and this is a perfect indicator of it.

And last, I just scrolled through 3 pages of comments and didn't find anyone trolling or saying terrible things, only lots and lots of discussion. Wow. Good job Escapist community, I like you. More than I thought I did.

 

[TAdamson]

Snip

My point was that people don't go on XBox live and tell their opponents that they are "going to murder them" or that they have "murdered them".

yes they do.... All the time... Do you even play on live? It sounds like you are going on hear say.

Well it's appropriate in the context, you are going to kill them in the game. But I have never heard anybody refer to it as "murder". It's more of a "I'm gonna getchu" "Imma gunna kill u" thing.

You also wouldn't say "I'm going to murder/kill you" while playing Madden or FIFA. But people do say I'm going to rape you in that context.


People say "rape" when it's inappropriate. They are trying to demean their opponent further than the point of actually killing them. Or they are referring to a punishing long-lasting task. ie. "The restaurant staff got raped last night. They're exhusted."

If you actually compare "rape" to a similar act like "torture"; apart from the occasional use of the adjective "torturous" torture isn't really used as a word out of context.

Man, I hear people say murder all the time in reference to sports, like watching hockey with my buddies.

"wow, the leafs are getting murdered out there tonight, just, totally destroyed..... damn"
Or about work
"man, these 12 hour shifts are murder" (friend who works the kitchen at pizza place)
about school
"these test are killing me!" or "those exams are going to be the end of you"


I find the two words are used almost interchangeably in those contexts, with some sentence restructuring of course.

Maybe it's that the term "rape" is to infer that something is supposed to leave you broken, weeping and degraded while "kill/murder" refers to things that leave you lifeless and insensible.


The threat "I'm going to kill/murder you." in games is just a statement of intent where as the threat "I'm going to rape you." is designed to degrade and provoke a feeling of shame and self disgust.

A real world distinction should also be noted, though it is a slight digression, is that there is such a thing as justifiable homicide. There is no such thing as justifiable rape.

 

[Darkmantle]

Snip

Maybe it's that the term "rape" is to infer that something is supposed to leave you broken, weeping and degraded while "kill/murder" refers to things that leave you lifeless and insensible.


The threat "I'm going to kill/murder you." in games is just a statement of intent where as the threat "I'm going to rape you." is designed to degrade and provoke a feeling of shame and self disgust.

A real world distinction should also be noted, though it is a slight digression, is that there is such a thing as justifiable homicide. There is no such thing as justifiable rape.

part of that comes down to which you find is worse, alive and "damaged", or dead and "whole". And other things like the concept of an honourable death, you can die fighting/doing the right thing, it's hard to imagine rape used in the same context, I don't think it can be.

but the no such thing as justifiable rape thing is true, which is probably why rape isn't used as much as killing in stories.

 

[rancher of monsters]

You know, I admit to using rape humor a lot and never really thinking about the consequences. I figure the odds of anyone I encounter actually having been raped are pretty low. But reading this reminds me of the way I feel when someone calls me a ****** on Xbox live. It doesn't ruin my day, odds are I'll have forgotten the incident by the next morning. But it brings you down, if only for a moment, from something that is meant to be a really good and purely fun time. It takes a form of escapism and brings you back to the real world in an ugly, angry, saddening way. I imagine it can only be ten times worse when you have real emotional damage tied to a word or phrase. Thank you for sharing your experience with us and, if only for my own behavior in the future, your story won't be wasted.

 

[McNutty26]

Anonymous, thank you. Reading this the realisation hit me like a train. It's a great article, which provokes some very deep thoughts.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

Well, to be perfectly fair you're overgeneralizing feminism. The feminists who fight so that women get paid equal wages for equal work shouldn't be lumped into the same group as those who try to scandalize things in the media by talking about 'objectification'.

...snip...

Well when it comes to things like Romance Novels, the thing there is that both genders are into the same basic thing. If anything the big differance is that it's acceptable for women to read them, but less so for men. Your typical "romance" novel from the romance section and some porno book from the porn section are pretty much the same exact thing, covering the same basic material when you get down to it. Actually I think the actual differance might be is that despite the perceptions the stuff girls read is a bit more "hardcore" than the actual porn, which sounds shocking until you've ever had the (mis)fortune of listening to the locker room chat of both guys and girls and realize who is actually worse. When it comes to some of these things like romance novels that get attacked as enforcing a negative stereotype of feminimity or whatever, I think people tend to overlook them being universal behaviors that don't clearly fit on one side of the gender gap. It's sort of like porn in general, both genders consume it in more or less equal proportions, it's just considered taboo (freaky)
for men. Some girl shows up with a book with Fabio on the cover dressed as an erotic pirate and some girl in a torn up dress tied to the mast of his ship about be be ravished and nobody thinks anything of it, some guy pulls out a book with a dude bound to the mast of a ship and some gorgeous lady dressed as an erotic pirate about to ravish him, and everyone is liable to treat him like a freak, "that's not appropriate reading material for the break room".

The thing is that there really isn't an entrenched patriarchy so much as there is human society. Overall the genders aren't really all that differant, other than women bearing the children and being physically less capable than the men on average, which does lead to the more physically capable side of things having more of a prescence in the work force. Likewise the process of bearing children is not exactly quick and easy, and women doing that is another thing that has to be considered, and it DOES very much come up during employment since a woman might very well be out of comission for a number of months and then have to radically re-asses her priorities at nearly any time. In general with a guy you don't have to worry about the possibility he's going to show up tomorrow and say "oh yeah, I'm pregnant" and have his rate of reliability suddenly change. All of this very much influances things like wages which are in part based on perceptions of reliability. Now granted from a certain perspective it's not FAIR, I mean a woman didn't ask to be born a woman, but at the same time it is a reality and saying that an employer shouldn't be allowed to consider the obvious is pretty stupid as well. It's not a conflict I'm going to try and sort through in detail and give solid judgements on, simply laeaving it at "it exists" and that it's a major issue because it's not easily resolved.... and the same applies to a lot of the gender issues that exist. It's not patriachy, or bigotry, or anything else as much as reality.

Feminists are those who by definition push the interests of women, with equality in a societal sense, there is nothing left to push besides trying to get an advantage over men. Those who argue in favor of equality for women are NOT feminists, they are just women. Of course the term does seem to be heavily misused because it carries a degree of power with
it. A feminist is the kind of person who instead of argueing points like the above on one side or the other would argue that men should say be unable to hold any position of authority whatsoever due to their inherant physical abillities meaning there is no other way of women ever having power unless they have it all. A point which goes hand in hand with rants about how with men being stronger, all sex, no matter how seemingly consentual, is effectively rape since true equality is impossible and without equality there cannot be consenting equals... so to avoid rape women have to be given all the societal power to perhaps counterbalance the physical power. Simply put actual feminism borders on the absolutly insane nowadays, because with equality and the state of the actual arguements (which are kind of petty compared to what the issues used to be... you know fighting over wages and biological considerations in the workplace, as opposed to say... the right to own property, or not be considered the property of a husband), there really isn't anything left to crusade for. Feminism achieved every reasonable goal it had set, so now all that's left is for it to set increasingly insane ones.

Meh.

I was saying that you're overgeneralizing feminists, not that I agree with the more radical feminists. I am in favor of a broad civil law that allows people to sue employers if they can prove that they are being paid less for equal amount of work due to some form of discrimination. But that really isn't even tied to feminism,per se. Other than that, I agree that feminists are mostly fighting a cultural battle now, and I don't think you have to be all that cynical to think that more than a few of them are doing it out of ressentiment or in order to get an advantage over men.

I frankly don't disagree with most of your points, especially about both sexes enjoying pornography. 'Objectification' is a basic byproduct of human nature, and it isn't necessarily tied to sexuality. When you use your friend for a ride and tune out their anecdotes, you're essentially objectifying them. Or at least commodifying them, which is just as bad. Ultimately what is important is not whether people view others as objects, but how they treat others. So what if people objectify one another now and again?

But I still think you're overgeneralizing, which was my only point in the first place. The people you seem to be describing are quite radical. It would be like identifying all Republicans with Pat Robertson.

However, I do agree that once you've established the appropriate laws, the movement ceases to be a civil rights movement, and becomes a cultural movement. I also agree that the term 'feminist' itself is rather counter-productive if it is meant to be used in the fight for gender equality: it has the obvious connotation that these people are only fighting for women, not men.

I also agree that there isn't an entrenched patriarchy because a patriarchy is a formal system of governance. There are obviously quite a few ways that men and women aren't equal in outcome, but that doesn't necessarily imply a patriarchy. And all the law is supposed to do is ensure equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

To put my message concisely: I'm for equal rights and a cool objective, rational reflection upon societal norms. I don't approve of sensationalism. One can point out tropes or stereotypes, but treating them as some form of epidemic is clearly stupid.

Going on a crusade to rid society of anything offensive or that might have a possible negative influence is a fool's errand when it's done through social pressure alone, and tyrannic censorship when people start trying to legislate it.

We shouldn't be trying to suppress the things that might influence the weak-minded. We should be fostering critical thinking and individualism, so that weak-mindedness itself can be eradicated.

 

[RedRaptor]

Even if you yourself have never experienced rape or sexual abuse chances are you know someone who has, you may not even realise it because they don't talk about, but they're there. I personally know two people who were brave enough to tell me about being abused as children and another woman who was raped as a teenager.

It's disturbing to think that there are people out there who take it so lightly and jokily when it's a disturbingly prolific crime with real damage done to real people, who you may know. It's time for the vale of anonymity on the internet that gave way to cowardly aggression toward total strangers to be lifted, and for us all to see the living and breathing human being on the other side.

 

[Schadrach]

Rape can be a very difficult crime to prosecute because victims rarely come forward immediately and often have accidentally destroyed very crucial evidence. I have a feeling that shows like CSI have done great harm to the justice system because of the expectations that they create in jurors for every case to be proven by overwhelming forensic evidence. That is not reality.

In many rape cases, it is a question of a woman saying a man raped her vs. a man who says either that they did not have sex or if they did, that said sex was consensual. In those instances, it's often up to the jury to decide what they believe. In that regard, cultural perspectives can play a big role.

It shouldn't. When you are holding a case to a standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" and the only evidence the prosecution has is the accusation, and the only evidence the defense has is the claim of innocence, it's not exactly an ideal case, but there's certainly "reasonable doubt." More realistically, the accused often gets found guilty unless there's exculpatory evidence.

I would like to point out that "Feminism" does not represent a dual standard. Or I should say that if someone is advocating a dual standard, it is not "Feminism." Feminism, by definition is about equal rights for men and women. If you are advocating for disparity of rights between men and women, regardless of which side that disparity favors, you are by definition NOT a Feminist, regardless of what you chose to call yourself.

All feminism is, all it means by definition, is that men and women should be equal. To be a feminist is to also be a masculinist. Anyone who says different is wrong.

And that's the same thing the article author said. Women just want to be people guys.

Figured I'd respond to you both together. Put simply, there's precious few who disagree with "the radical notion that women are people too" or "the idea that women should have equal rights and responsibilities as men." It's what gets attached to that when someone goes from there to "Therefore, ..." that people have issues with.

This is the polar opposite of what happens.

You could not actually be more wrong about the normative conduct of a rape trial, and I'm genuinely disgusted you're taking one of the most awful tragedies of the current legal system, one of the most serious issues in current law and an area in serious need of reform and trying to claim that it's unfair to the people who overwhelmingly walk away from it because the burden of proof is so insanely high that it's actually impossible in most cases.

Right, no one ever gets convicted based on an accusation and little to nothing else, not even say Paul Greig in Ireland, or Brian Banks for a recent US example, and no one only escapes by having a mountain of exculpatory evidence because they happened to be in the right places at the right time like Louis Gonzales (who got off primarily because his location was only unaccounted for for 6 minutes out of the entire day), right?

Your answer to it being difficult to get a conviction against the standard "beyond a reasonable doubt" if there's no evidence that the accused is the perpetrator, or in some cases no evidence that a crime occurred at all beyond the accusation of the victim is to make it virtually impossible to defend yourself instead? Or do you have a different tack than the typical claims of wanting to lower the standard of evidence for rape only and remove various avenues of defense?

Imagine for a moment that Paul Greig is innocent (just Google Paul Greig rape for info). How would you defend yourself?

Imagine for a second you are Brian Banks. How should you have been able to defend yourself from that accusation?

Would your desire for lowered standards apply to "not rape" cases where a woman forces herself sexually on a man? If so, what standard would you use for a "drunken party"-type case where mutually drunk persons engage in intercourse. Who violated whom? If one counterclaims that their accuser is actually the perpetrator and they are actually the victim, how do you sort that out?

Most importantly, what should be the due diligence a man in your world (and presumably not women because they only commit "not rape") should have to go through in order to defend himself if falsely accused? Do you think that it's a reasonable requirement to place on men? If you are a man (and I have no idea) do you currently engage in this?

Rape isn't a feminist issue. It's an everyone issue.

Yes, yes it is. If you use a definition in which forced sexual activity is rape rather than one that specifically counts the varieties that account for most sexual violence against non-convict men as "not rape", it's not even a gendered problem.

No one is trying to get away with double standards.

Except the people who have no interest in changing definitions because otherwise it makes the problem look less gendered, and who want to place rape under a lesser standard of evidence than every other crime (while leaving "not rape" [you know, such as sexual activity performed through force, the threat of force, or while unconscious, intoxicated, or otherwise incapable of consent but where the perpetrator is not penetrating her victim -- for example, a woman having intercourse with a non-consenting man] at the higher standard), and/or place additional restrictions that create an environment in which one can be accused, have their life ruined before it even considers going to court, and even if innocent be held to the standard of "if you can't prove it was impossible for you to commit the crime, then you are guilty."

 

[IankBailey]

"Except "ruining fun" is exactly why I dislike it when people use that word. It ruins my fun."

Except you're not the only person in the world. Hate to break it to everyone who has suffered trauma but you're not the only people in the world. You are not special from any other person. I understand what happened was horrible but this is life; It's hard and more often then not things aren't going to go your way.

And to quote South Park "Either everything's okay, or nothing's okay."