gyzym:

thisisminorityprivilege:

Female privilege is thinking that you can argue with rapists.

“What’s a rapist ? surely not someone with heavy mental problems, it’s more of the casual men who smiles to girls in the streets before looking at their bottoms.
Men are usually raping on Saturday nights, so they can compete on who raped the most defenseless and younger girl. Rape is something that is seen as very manly among mens, someone who never raped is not considered as a real man.”
~The world saw by dumb tumblr feminists

Meanwhile, in the real world, rapists are mentally unstable people, like murderer and pedophiles, who are hated by everyone (from castrating them to killing them) and there is not a single person that would excuse their actions.

You get it, Rapist aren’t a variable that you can handle or even people you can resonate. Which means : “Who is stupid enough to think that telling that rape is bad would affect anything ?”
Female privilege of course !

While the message could focus on something constructive like “how to react with a victim”, female privilege is focusing the message on “Don’t rape” like if the men who are going to listen where okay with rape being an alternative to a date or something seen as a manliness achievement.

And also condemning the “Don’t get raped” message on absurd levels : nobody will disagree that a woman have the right to wear whatever the fuck she wants but saying that a woman shouldn’t take self defense classes because it’s up to the unsociable psyko to learn that mugging/raping/murdering is wrong…is just using the wailing wall technique.

I’m going to say it again : I do NOT see any differences between a rapist and a murderer. Both are dangerous and unpredictable variables in this world and thinking that you can argue with them is bullshit.
And crazy bitches walking around saying that “rape is not okay” is nothing more for me that saying that “killing is not okay”, it’s an argument so dumb that you deserve to be punched in the face.

Okay, someone linked me to this in the hope that I would respond to it, and while I am going to do so at great length, let me be real clear on two things: 1) I removed the photo meme that went with this post originally because it was incomprehensible. If you’d like to view it, please feel free to click through to the original post, maybe the image will make more sense to you than it did to me, and; 2) I really do know better than to try to convince this poster of anything at all. Their entire blog is either hilariously (if upsettingly) incorrect about everything it posts or a very poorly constructed satire, but either way, I possess both fully functioning eyeballs and a working understanding of human beings, and I KNOW there is nothing I could say that would make this blogger change their views. However! As always, I am all about educating and talking honestly about this shit, so what I am in fact doing here is opportunistically using this pile of dreck as a jumping-off board to talk about why these sorts of beliefs are fundamentally flawed. I make no attempts to conceal that, nor am I ashamed of it; if you’re going to post vitriolic incorrect nonsense on the internet, you should be fully prepared for people to use that shit to their own ends. Such is the way of the world.

So, let’s start…well, not quite at the beginning. I’m going to leave your “quote” from “dumb tumblr feminists” until the end, because, again, I am opportunistically educating here, and I feel that part of my response will make for a good closing note. SO:

Meanwhile, in the real world, rapists are mentally unstable people, like murderer and pedophiles

Here’s a fun fact for you: the dude that raped me? Gainfully employed; well-liked; respected by his peers; presents as both an average citizen and a genuinely stand-up guy. Volunteers on the weekends. Once pulled over with me in his car and helped me rescue a lost dog before it got run over. He is not someone who reads as a “mentally unstable person.” He is not someone who reads as a rapist, but I know he is one, because….wait for it…he raped me. Ain’t no better proof than that.

I’ll tell you something else, since it’s probably become pretty clear by this point anyway: dude who raped me? Yeah, I knew him. He was not a terrifying boogeyman emerging from the shadows of a dark alley, appearing for just long enough to fuck me without my consent before vanishing into the night. He was not the dreaded unknown perpetrator lying in wait beneath my car. He was a dude my friends liked, a dude I liked, a dude I would have fucked willingly if he had just, you know, asked me, instead of drugging my drink and taking matters into his own hands over my repeated protests.

This thing you’re talking about, this idea that rapists are these terrifying figures who wander around like zombies, uncontrollable sexual hunger evident in their outstretched hands and pouring forth from their open maws—you’re not the first person to think this. You won’t be the last person to think this. You think this because it is the easy, the comforting thing to think. The idea that all rapists are frightening strangers wandering the streets and beyond control or reason is so much less horrifying than the thought that they are people you hang out with, work with, get drinks with. That they are people you have known all your life. That they are people you stand in line behind while buying coffee or see every year at family gatherings. That they are the fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers (because women rape too, folks) of people you love. That they are people you love. It’s so much easier to think of them as something out a horror movie, because then you don’t have to face the hard truths of rape: that a huge portion of rape victims know their attacker. That a huge portion of rape victims trust their attacker. That a huge portion of rape victims would never have guessed, before they got raped, that their rapist was a rapist.

[Rapists] are hated by everyone (from castrating them to killing them) and there is not a single person that would excuse their actions.

Really? Rapists are hated by everybody, huh? Nobody would ever excuse a rapist, huh? What about this recent news story, about rape kits that are taken but not being tested in Colorado because the police believe it to be unnecessary—tell me, are these the actions of a public that universally hates rapists, that never excuses their actions? How ‘bout, oh, I don’t know, the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case that was all over the news last year and that recently settled, wherein a hotel maid accused a prominent public figure of assaulting her and seemingly the entire goddamn world jumped to opine as to whether or not she was lying? What about the recent slew of Republicans busting out such sparkling examples of ignorance to rape and how it works as “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways of trying to shut that whole that down,” regarding pregnancy borne of rape? What about everyone I have ever known, myself included, who has told someone about their rape only to be told that they were misinterpreting, overreacting, exaggerating? What about everyone I have ever known, myself included, who has told someone about their rape only to be told that the person they are accusing could not possibly have done that, end of story? What about everyone who has ever been turned away by the police in reporting a rape because they didn’t adequately display that they, for example, “fought back” to the ~expected standard? What about every movie or television show you’ve ever seen, every song you’ve ever heard, that presents sex as something that is owed to men, regardless of permission? What about every time you’ve ever heard the old gem, “When a woman says no, she means yes?”

I mean, look, again, I know that I am beating my head against a brick wall in respect to you, the specific blogger to whose post this is a reply, but! If you are ANOTHER person reading this and you do NOT have your head approximately half a foot up your own ass: I wish we lived in a world where rapists were universally condemned and hated, but we don’t. For proof, please look at the responses all over the internet to articles about rape, to news stories about rape, to jokes about rape, to people telling the stories of their own rape. It’s literally everywhere. Have fun.

You get it, Rapist aren’t a variable that you can handle or even people you can resonate. Which means : “Who is stupid enough to think that telling that rape is bad would affect anything ?” Female privilege of course !

Okay, things I am going to ignore here: the incomprehensible grammar (protip: resonate is not a verb that works the way you think it does); the fact that “female privilege” is a ridiculous concept (protip 2: the idea of privilege revolves around specific, pre-existing societal hierarchies, and thus the word doesn’t apply in this context); the clear suggestion that only women get raped (just straight-up wrong).

Which leaves me with: “Who is stupid enough to think that telling that rape is bad would affect anything?” And to that, I would like to raise my hand and be counted. I am that stupid, poster! Me, I, right here. I’m proud of it, too. Make me a big goddamn banner that says “Stupid enough to believe rape education helps prevent rape,” and I will cheerfully carry it around with me, the writing displayed for all to see.

And do you know WHY I think that? Do you know WHY I am that stupid? I will give you a hint: the answer is not “female privilege.” The answer is that, in a society that does what I have described in brief above, in a society that jokes about rape but doesn’t discuss it seriously, in a society that dismisses rape victims as liars or opportunists, in a society that enables rape by playing like it’s something only scary dudes concealed in dark alleys do, rape education is necessary. It’s necessary because there are rapists who might not have become rapists if they hadn’t been taught, by this society that does not take rape seriously, that they could get away with it. It is necessary because people ALL FUCKING OVER THE PLACE lack the fundamental understanding that rape is not about sex, but about power and control. It is necessary because there are rape victims and rape survivors who have NO FUCKING GODDAMN IDEA of how to proceed, who have been taught by society that if they speak up they will not be heard, not be believed, not be helped. It is necessary because there are people like you making posts on the internet like this, displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of the basic facts of rape with a conviction and a vitriol that indicates clearly that they are unwilling to listen. What response is there to this except to encourage better education? Except to try to get as much information out there is possible? Except to hope that, with more accurate resources at their disposal, we might make the world safer for the next generation of human beings to occupy it?

So call me stupid. I can live with that. I’ve been called far worse, after all; it’s one of those things that comes along with talking honestly about this shit, whether you believe that or not.

While the message could focus on something constructive like “how to react with a victim”

Holy shit, hi there, Salient Point! I wasn’t expecting to see you here; what are you doing in this post? Don’t you know there are places you can go where you don’t have to be completely surrounded by utter nonsense?

So, since it IS true that this information is constructive and important for people to have, here’s:

How To React If Someone Tells You They Have Been Raped:

• Believe them.
• No, seriously, fucking believe them. Some ways to convey to a victim of rape that you do not believe them include: asking if they are sure it was rape; asking that they give you all of the details of their rape so that you can “decide for yourself” it was rape or not; asking if or telling them that they are lying; telling them you don’t think the person in question could have done what they are suggesting; rolling your eyes; nodding awkwardly and dropping the subject; suggesting that “things will look different later” or any variation thereof; ignoring them because you don’t want to deal with it.
• Don’t touch them unless they ask you to/give you permission/touch you first.
• SERIOUSLY DON’T TOUCH THEM UNLESS YOU ARE 110% SURE THEY WISH TO BE TOUCHED
• Give them control of the situation. Rape by nature strips its victims of power and control, and continuing to take power and control from someone who has been raped is harmful, not helpful. Ask them how they want to proceed, and then go along with what they say. Do not make decisions for them unless they specifically ask you to do so. Do not attempt to shame them into reporting it if they do not wish to, because that shit is not your call. Do not under any circumstances listen to what they want and then proceed to do what you think is right.
• Do not betray their confidence by telling other people about their rape without their consent. Do not. Do anything. Without. Their. Consent.
• Help them find resources and professionals who are trained to help them in ways you cannot. RAINN is a good place to start. The NSVRC is a good place to start. Googling rape resources is a good place to start.
• BELIEVE
• THEM.

Hope that made some things clear.

[F]emale privilege is focusing the message on “Don’t rape” like if the men who are going to listen where okay with rape being an alternative to a date or something seen as a manliness achievement.

Again, ignoring the ridiculous “female privilege,” claim here, but: um, no. The rape-prevention piece of the message “Don’t rape,” has nothing to do with convincing people who are already raping to stop raping—they’re rapists. They are people who have failed to hear “No” at the penultimate real-life level; they’re not going to hear it when it’s presented to them in conceptual form. The rape-prevention piece of the message “Don’t rape,” is not about them. It’s about preventing more of them from happening. By overtly teaching people from a formative age that rape is a bad thing to do. Instead of doing what we do now, which is overtly teaching people from a formative age that rape is a bad thing to have happen to you, and then not teaching anything else about it, not discussing it honestly ever at all, and allowing the grossly permissive, widely incorrect and totally fucked media juggernaut of rape jokes and victim-blaming to fill in the gaps.

Nobody thinks that they’re going to be able to look at someone who is about to rape them and go “Hey, don’t rape!” with the result of the assailant in questions backing off. Rapists rape. Rapists get off, quite literally, on ignoring the protests and resistance of their victims. Nobody is planning on shutting down current rapists with rhetoric, because WE KNOW THAT IS NOT SOMETHING THAT WORKS. This is about preventing future rapists. This is about teaching this shit the right way instead of the patently, provably wrong one.

And also condemning the “Don’t get raped” message on absurd levels: nobody will disagree that a woman have the right to wear whatever the fuck she wants but saying that a woman shouldn’t take self defense classes because it’s up to the unsociable psyko to learn that mugging/raping/murdering is wrong…is just using the wailing wall technique.

What we have here is a failure to communicate, in that you have failed to understand what is being communicated. Condemning the “Don’t get raped,” message doesn’t, in any way, mean that people should not take self defense classes, be cautious about walking alone at night, avoid leaving their drinks unattended, or carry pepper spray. It is always a good idea to protect yourself. It is always a good idea to equip yourself with the items and/or skills required to do so. If nothing else, there is no way to know when the zombie apocalypse is coming, and it is always better to be prepared for every eventuality. Nobody is saying otherwise.

Condemning “Don’t get raped,” isn’t about convincing people not to expect rape. Condemning “Don’t get raped,” is about taking the blame for rape and putting it where it belongs: on rapists. When we teach, “Don’t get raped,” it suggests that it is a given individual’s responsibility to prevent their own rape, and thus that if they do get raped it is their fault, because they have “failed” at this task. This is patently ridiculous on about a dozen different levels, the most obvious one being that rape is BY DEFINITION an act committed against someone else’s will, and thus outside of their control. But that’s not what we teach right now. We teach “Don’t get raped,” and so rape victims blame themselves for what has happened to them. We teach “Don’t get raped,” and so rapists think that they’ve done nothing wrong, because it was the responsibility of their victims to prevent this (seriously, I cannot tell you how much shit I’ve read where rapists are like, “Well it wasn’t rape because she didn’t succeed in stopping me,” like, ARE YOU KIDDING ME). We teach “Don’t get raped,” and that puts all of the blame on the WRONG PEOPLE. And so—I know, this is a radical thought here—WE SHOULD FUCKING STOP.

(P.S. as a Jew your “wailing wall technique” makes me want to tear out all of my hair and come at you with everything I’ve got kthnxbai)

I’m going to say it again : I do NOT see any differences between a rapist and a murderer. Both are dangerous and unpredictable variables in this world and thinking that you can argue with them is bullshit. And crazy bitches walking around saying that “rape is not okay” is nothing more for me that saying that “killing is not okay”, it’s an argument so dumb that you deserve to be punched in the face.

Places you can find the sentiment “Murder is not okay”—like, the written out, clearly stated sentiment “Murder is not okay”— include the texts of pretty much every major religion on earth and the laws of pretty much every country on earth. I mean, power to you if you want to try to punch the Ten Commandments in the face, but good luck with the continued viability of the bones in your hand, I hear those things are written on stone tablets. The same is not true for rape. The wrongness of rape is not talked about openly and honestly all over the goddamn place—IS NOT EVEN ILLEGAL EVERYWHERE—is not condemned by every major religion. The comparison doesn’t hold up, no matter how much difference you do or do not see between murderers (who, to be clear, murder people) and rapists (who, to be clear, rape them).

Additionally, murder has been painted and dissected in so many ways it boggles the mind. Murder’s in the news, television, movies, literature, history books, religion, psychology, theater—like, seriously, if you can think of a variety of murder, it’s been done. If you can think of a nuance of murder, it’s been discussed. If you can think of a story about murder it’s probably been told (although to be entirely fair if it was the murder of a member of an underprivileged group it is likely that it has at some point been glossed over, ignored, denied, or forgotten about—humankind, you are so often disappointing). People. Fucking. Talk. Honestly. About. Murder. People who have had someone attempt to murder them, or have lost a loved one to murder, are not expected to keep silent about it for the comfort of others! People who have been murdered are not, at their funerals, roundly shamed! People who have been murdered do not, by nature, have to live with what happened to them, and in doing so have to come to terms both with the act itself and with the fact that people do not take it seriously. Murder and rape are not comparable because they are different acts, and also because murder is covered and discussed and dealt with much more honestly than rape has ever been.

And, finally, let us return to the opening of your post:

“What’s a rapist ? surely not someone with heavy mental problems, it’s more of the casual men who smiles to girls in the streets before looking at their bottoms. Men are usually raping on Saturday nights, so they can compete on who raped the most defenseless and younger girl. Rape is something that is seen as very manly among mens, someone who never raped is not considered as a real man.” ~The world saw by dumb tumblr feminists

So, I believe your point here is that ~dumb tumblr feminists~ think all men are rapists. As a ~dumb tumblr feminist~ myself, lemme disprove that for you: the idea that all men are rapists? Is some bullshit. It is some terrible, pervasive, ridiculous bullshit. But it’s not the ~dumb tumblr feminists~ that are putting it out there. And it’s not bullshit because it’s not just men that rape (although, for the record, that is super fucking true, NOT ONLY MEN RAPE) and it’s not bullshit because there are some men who don’t rape (although, for the record, that is also super fucking true, there are lots and lots of men who don’t rape, and a hearty clap on the back to them! A round of applause to all decent human beings!). No, this idea is bullshit because it takes the responsibility of rape away from rapists. It says, “Oh, rapists, it’s not your fault you rape people, it’s the fault of your uncontrollable genitals!” It says, “Oh, rapists, we understand you, you are just giving in to your carnal desires!” It says, “Oh, rapists, you’re not doing anything wrong, because you’re owed this! You wouldn’t have these urges if raping people wasn’t coded into your very DNA.”

And see, I’m pretty fucking surethat’s NOT what the ~dumb tumblr feminists~ you’re referencing are trying to say. I’m pretty fucking sure that the message we are as a whole trying to get across is not that everyone with a penis is going to rape indiscriminately, but that rape can be committed by anyone, even if that someone is well-liked or well-respected or a person you previously trusted. That people who say things like, “Oh, it couldn’t have been him, he couldn’t have done that, you’re lying,” are full of shit. That not every rapist is a stranger in a dark alley, and if you have a rape experience that isn’t with a stranger in a dark alley, but with a friend, or lover, or spouse, or family member, or coworker, or mutual friend, that rape ISN’T ANY LESS TERRIBLE, DAMAGING, OR VALID. I’m pretty fucking sure we’re trying to put out the information that rape is the fault of the rapist, not the victim, that rape is the responsibility of the rapist, not the victim, that we should be teaching don’t rape instead of don’t get raped, that we should be educating and talking honestly about rape much, much more than we currently are. You’ve misquoted us, is my point here. Call me a ~dumb tumblr feminist~ until the cows come home, but just so we’re clear, you’ve got my message all wrong.

In closing, let me say this: you have as much right as anybody else with a computer and an internet connection to be fundamentally wrong in a public forum, but you are, without a doubt, fundamentally wrong. The shit you are arguing for—which, if I’m not mistaken, can all be summed up with, “Shut the fuck up and accept things the way they are,”—does jack shit to prevent rape, because it’s what people have been doing for CENTURIES, GODDAMN, and yet here we are. The statistics say you are wrong; I know, I have looked at them. The mental health professionals say you are wrong; I know, I have visited them. And the rape survivors, the people who have actually experienced rape, who know what rape looks and sounds and feels like, who have the most vested interest in preventing it from happening to others because they know first-hand the true fucking horror of it—yeah, they say you are wrong too. I know, because I am one. And you can bitch and moan all you want, but hand to god, doing what I can to educate folks about, and thereby (hopefully) prevent, rape is always going to be more important to me than your half-assed, incorrect, whiny complaints. Hand to fucking god, you are never going to shut me up.

afternoonsnoozebutton:

Apologies in advance for the really serious post, but I think I’ve actually made my point pretty well in the text below and it’d mean a lot to me if you’d read it. Trigger warning for rape and sexual violence. 

I want to prove two things: 

1. Rape is a unique crime not comparable to being robbed or murdered. 
2. The unique nature of rape makes rape jokes especially heinous. 

This post is a sort-of response to a question I got this morning.  

Rape is a unique crime. 

Rape is not like murder or being robbed, rape is a type of torture - an exceptionally malicious act that has, at its core, no purpose except to inflict exceptional pain on you. It’s an act where the perpetrator not only wants to hurt you in a uniquely personal way, but enjoys the violation. Rape is so much more than just the act of sex - it destroys your bodily and sexual autonomy.

To rape is not merely to deny someone’s will, but to deny them their very personhood. The humiliation and shame experienced by rape victims is completely unique; they experience complete subjugation and the intimate loss of control of their own bodies.

A few weeks ago, I was mugged at gunpoint on North Carolina Ave. in Southeast DC. Now, if I’m ever back there, I’ll be much more apprehensive of my safety than I would’ve been before. This is pretty common - when you experience a violation, the area of the violation no longer feels safe. With rape, the area of violation is your own body. 

Jokes about rape are uniquely horrible. 

A recent joke that “comedian” Daniel Tosh made about how funny it would be if a girl was raped created a little bit of an internet shitstorm, forcing him to semi-apologize on Twitter. He followed up his apology with this Tweet: 

(Personally, I find dead baby jokes a little bit gross.) “How do you get 10 babies into a jar? Blender. How do you get them out? Nachos.” Dead baby jokes, though, operate on in an area entirely removed from reality - nobody who tells that joke is actually contemplating using a baby as hummus, and functionally 0% of people know anyone who’s ever thought about or attempted to eat a pulverized baby. 

Compare that to the prevalence of rape in the status quo. It’s estimated that 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Now, if 1 in 3 babies was killed and eaten with tortilla chips, people would think of it not as a joke, but as a horribly serious reality. 

Murder jokes are less heinous for a similar reason. The national homicide rate is 4.8 per 100,000 people, meaning that the chance a given person hearing a murder joke will actually be killed is 00.0048%. The chance that you’ll actually trigger a terrible flashback from someone who’s been nearly murdered is damn low. 

What really makes the difference between murder jokes and rape jokes, though, is not just the statistics. Murder is something that is taken extremely seriously in our society. Report rates are pretty high, and victims of attempted murder don’t need to worry that they’ll be accused of “asking for it” or being told that what happened to them isn’t a big deal. To be clear, I’m not justifying jokes about homicide. 

Jokes about rape serve to make rape less serious. People who enjoy rape jokes commonly want to be told that rape isn’t a big deal, that it’s just sex, and that other people think so, too. A study of unreported acquaintance rapists done by Hinck and Thomas in 1999 found that “These individuals’ propensity to rape was significantly related not only to their acceptance of rape myths and of traditional ideas about male and female sexuality, but also to their belief that male sexual aggression is normal.” 

That doesn’t mean that anyone who’s ever laughed at a rape joke is a future rapist. What it does mean is that these jokes provide the ammunition that these people need to justify themselves and think, “Hey, rape is not that big of a deal. It’s funny. Look, they all think so, too.” 

Furthermore, the fact that rape isn’t taken seriously or that the blame is attributed to the woman keeps more women from coming forward, seeking justice for themselves, or even from getting counseling. After all, if rape isn’t that big of a deal, and if it was possibly their fault, there’s really no point. Every time a rape victim hears a rape joke, not only can the victim flash back to the rape and relive the experience in excruciating detail, but the victim also has to experience that mindfuck with the invalidation of suffering that comes with the levity of a joke. 

To sum up: 

• Rape is a type of torture, and rape victims experience severe psychological trauma that goes well beyond the physical damage.
• The prevalence of sexual assault makes it much more likely that either a rapist or a rape victim will hear a given joke about rape. 
• Rape jokes perpetuate our society’s fucked up belief that rape isn’t serious. 
• Rape jokes empower would-be rapists. 
• Rape jokes further harm the victims of rape. 

ok4rj:

So you made a rape joke and now people are, like, really, really mad at you.  I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt; maybe you were at a party and the booze made your common sense slip away from you or maybe you were making what you viewed as a flippantly humorous remark on Facebook.  Either way, you probably didn’t mean any harm, right?  So what’s the big deal?

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When sports culture meets rape culture - Kate Harding

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