More explanation of rape culture

[Rainbow Dolphins]

What I'm SAYING is everyone should always get consent before touching another person. Example: if you were at a party and some girl took all her clothes off, even if you were staring at her with drool trickling down your chin, she doesn't have the right to come up and sit in your lap. She has to ask. Consent goes both ways. How is this so hard for you to grasp? Why do we always have to talk about this when consent and rape culture comes up? No signal, other than enthusiastic verbal consent, makes it acceptable to sexually engage another person. THIS INCLUDES YOU. Clear enough?

[Daktoria]

What I'm SAYING is everyone should always get consent before touching another person. Example: if you were at a party and some girl took all her clothes off, even if you were staring at her with drool trickling down your chin, she doesn't have the right to come up and sit in your lap. She has to ask. Consent goes both ways. How is this so hard for you to grasp? Why do we always have to talk about this when consent and rape culture comes up? No signal, other than enthusiastic verbal consent, makes it acceptable to sexually engage another person. THIS INCLUDES YOU. Clear enough?

RD, the original proposition wasn't just about how people dress. It was about how people dress AND interact:

To elaborate on monk's naked thing: a person could fall into someone's lap, blind drunk and wearing nothing but a necklace and a sloppy grin, and the person into whose lap they fell will not rape them unless that person is a rapist. It's rape culture that says that the victim's actions dictate whether they are raped or not. It's not the victim's actions that we should be scrutinising, it's the rapists. When I was raped, I was wearing a pair of jeans and a plain teeshirt. Clothing has nothing to do with it.

The initial victim is the person who's being sat on because the person being sat on didn't consent, nor is the victim allowed to infer sexual consent.

It'd be like saying I physically hand you a contract, but you're not allowed to sign it. To be fair, if I hand you a contract ON ACCIDENT, it's MY duty of care to say I made a mistake. Otherwise, I would be enslaving you to accommodate me instead of allowing you to live your own life.

Likewise, if I fell into your lap naked, it's MY duty of care to say I made a mistake.

[monk]

but falling into your lap does not give license to any further action on the "victims' part other than objection to the action and implementation of extraction strategies.

[Tookie]

^ That. Exactly.

[Daktoria]

but falling into your lap does not give license to any further action on the "victims' part other than objection to the action and implementation of extraction strategies.

One, define: contract.

Two, what's preventing a victim from being victimized indefinitely from perpetual accidents?

Again, if I drop a contract in front of you, you're not going to know it's an accident until I tell you. Furthermore, if I keep dropping contracts in front of you, you're going to be incapacitated.

For all that's important, a naked man could fall into a woman's lap over and over at the exact angle if he wanted, even to the point of bringing her to unconsented orgasm. Likewise, he could fall onto her lap at the exact angle over and over to bring himself to orgasm.

[monk]

Two, what's preventing a victim from being victimized indefinitely from perpetual accidents?

If the original objection and extraction strategy fail to prevent a repeat of the situation then that extraction strategy needs to be re-evaluated and changed to be more effective.

Again, if I drop a contract in front of you, you're not going to know it's an accident until I tell you.

Accident or deliberate, the immediate response is the same, objection and extraction. Afterwords if it's thought the intent was deliberate then an appeal/accusation of assault is made to whatever authority is appropriate.

Furthermore, if I keep dropping contracts in front of you, you're going to be incapacitated.

Involuntary incapacitation is definitely assault & battery, and unless the incapacitation is perpetual or permanent then resolution will happen when redress of the grievance happens, if it happens.

For all that's important, a naked man could fall into a woman's lap over and over at the exact angle if he wanted, even to the point of bringing her to unconsented orgasm. Likewise, he could fall onto her lap at the exact angle over and over to bring himself to orgasm.

Are you assuming a complete lack of objection or incapacitation? I think better analogy would be kissing. You can walk right up and kiss someone if you're somewhat dextrous and quick, but to do so a second time immediately is only possible if the other person is a willing participant or they are incapacitated. If they are unwilling to be kissed, the first time is battery. If the kisser's not so quick and just move in for the kiss, but the other person avoids it, because they didn't consent in advance it's still assault.

[Daktoria]

If the original objection and extraction strategy fail to prevent a repeat of the situation then that extraction strategy needs to be re-evaluated and changed to be more effective.

Weak and intimidated people are screwed.

Accident or deliberate, the immediate response is the same, objection and extraction. Afterwords if it's thought the intent was deliberate then an appeal/accusation of assault is made to whatever authority is appropriate.

No, if I'm handing you a contract on purpose, you have the opportunity to sign it.

The problem is it's impossible to distinguish between accidents and what's on purpose unless the HANDLER says it's a mistake.

Involuntary incapacitation is definitely assault & battery, and unless the incapacitation is perpetual or permanent then resolution will happen when redress of the grievance happens, if it happens.

Weak and intimidated people are screwed again. Someone could drop contracts around you your entire life, and you would be buried, never allowed to so much as breathe.

Are you assuming a complete lack of objection or incapacitation? I think better analogy would be kissing. You can walk right up and kiss someone if you're somewhat dextrous and quick, but to do so a second time immediately is only possible if the other person is a willing participant or they are incapacitated. If they are unwilling to be kissed, the first time is battery. If the kisser's not so quick and just move in for the kiss, but the other person avoids it, because they didn't consent in advance it's still assault.

Weak and intimidated people are screwed.

You don't care about intimidating weak people, do you?

I mean seriously, I don't see anything in your argument which prevents a naked man from de facto sexually assaulting a woman at all. The only way it happens is if the woman's fortunate enough to have people around who like her and are willing to help.

If the woman can be teased into intimidation, she'll completely lose control over the situation, and won't be able to defend herself whatsoever.

[postfeminist]

I'd like to hear something from you people concerning this:

Most men who are raped are anally raped.
Most women who are raped are vaginally raped.
Forced anal sex is more damaging than forced vaginal sex.
We should fight man-rape, women-rape does not matter.

More women are raped than men!
Numbers are irrelevant, average severity is all that matters.

This is the same logical justification many of you have used for genital mutilation differences, and using the exact same logical flow, how can rape culture be a bad thing? How can raping a woman be wrong? She isn't going to suffer as much as others would, and may not suffer at all physically.

[monk]

Poor logic, circumcision is done with parental/cultural approval flawed as it may be.
Rape is not.

[postfeminist]

Poor logic, circumcision is done with parental/cultural approval flawed as it may be.
Rape is not.

Well, rape culture would imply that it is done with cultural approval... and since when was cultural approval worth anything? FGC and MGC are both culturally approved.

Fighting against rape culture because it makes raping women okay while letting MGC go because it is culturally accepted is hypocritical. Done and done. Both are a violation of autonomy, but people generally fight for women on both fronts, despite the fronts being mirrored. Fighting for women on both fronts is sexist, one should either be fighting man-rape and FGC, or fighting all four issues.

[lillerina]

I wonder, would you go to a message board that discusses physics and yell at them for not looking sufficiently at cell mutations in animals? Would you berate a forum of poetry lovers for not discussing plays and drama in sufficient detail? It's okay to choose where to focus energy- actually I would say it's vital to choose where to focus energy. We can't address every single injustice in the world, so we choose which ones are most important to us personally and we let others pick the ones that matter most to them. I'm sure every feminist here has particular issues on which they focus. Saying that if we fight against female genital mutilation, we have to put equal resources into fighting against circumcision is patently ridiculous. One might as well say that because we want to end rape, we should put equal resources into fighting every other crime, and we're being prejudiced by not paying equal attention to murder, assault, battery, theft, you get the picture. We focus, and we specialise, and that's the right thing for us to do. We don't owe it to anyone to pick their particular issue to throw support behind. Clearly you're focussing in a different area to the area in which I'm focussing. That's great. Keep on keeping on, but don't demand that I stop supporting my issues and support yours instead. That's not how it works.

[postfeminist]

I wonder, would you go to a message board that discusses physics and yell at them for not looking sufficiently at cell mutations in animals? Would you berate a forum of poetry lovers for not discussing plays and drama in sufficient detail? It's okay to choose where to focus energy- actually I would say it's vital to choose where to focus energy. We can't address every single injustice in the world, so we choose which ones are most important to us personally and we let others pick the ones that matter most to them. I'm sure every feminist here has particular issues on which they focus. Saying that if we fight against female genital mutilation, we have to put equal resources into fighting against circumcision is patently ridiculous. One might as well say that because we want to end rape, we should put equal resources into fighting every other crime, and we're being prejudiced by not paying equal attention to murder, assault, battery, theft, you get the picture. We focus, and we specialise, and that's the right thing for us to do. We don't owe it to anyone to pick their particular issue to throw support behind. Clearly you're focussing in a different area to the area in which I'm focussing. That's great. Keep on keeping on, but don't demand that I stop supporting my issues and support yours instead. That's not how it works.

The problem is that feminism is a fight for equality, and all of you seem to be flying that flag as a lie. Fight for whatever you want, but if you are going to use a title with a definition, you must stick with it. You can call yourselves anti-FGC activists all you want, but you are not feminists by definition. All I've done is give equal consideration to the plight of men, something feminism is suppose to do (go read something, almost anything... everything I've been linked in here supports this point, albeit accidentally).

The fast and loose way you guys play the game means that someone could support FGC, support women working in the home, support sexist hiring and educational ideas... but be anti-rape, so call themselves a feminist. Would you let that fly? Probably not, but you're not much better.

[Axiomatic]

Well, I for one wasn't aware being opposed to men being raped immediately made it impossible to be opposed to women being raped, and vice versa. I'm glad you informed me it's impossible to do both.

[Butterfly North]

How many of us here have said that we're in support of male circumcision, anyway? If I ever have a son I won't be letting him be circumcised. Failing to vocally oppose something is not the same as supporting it.

Postfeminist, if you think that me speaking out against female genital mutilation more than against male circumcision = me supporting male circumcision then you need to really think about the internal logic behind that, because it's faulty. You might as well say that my interest in women's issues makes me a racist by virtue of preventing me from fighting against that form of discrimination.

Why don't you prove that logically speaking the following proposition...
'Mr Smith opposes female genital mutilation.'
...leads to the following conclusion...
'Mr Smith is in support of male circumcision.'
I'll give you a clue: It's because you can't.

[postfeminist]

Well, I for one wasn't aware being opposed to men being raped immediately made it impossible to be opposed to women being raped, and vice versa. I'm glad you informed me it's impossible to do both.

Thank you for being a sarcastic asshole, pretty sure that's against the rules.

How many of us here have said that we're in support of male circumcision, anyway? If I ever have a son I won't be letting him be circumcised. Failing to vocally oppose something is not the same as supporting it.

Most who have commented on it have written it off as a non-issue. No one has been directly in support of it (and I never said anyone was, where are you getting that from? Straw man argument)... but calling it a non-issue is like calling raping one sex a non-issue. That is the point. If we can fight rape rather than man-rape or woman-rape, why can we not fight infant genital mutilation, rather than FGC or MGC. Why must we... oh, they'll form their own group. If women had been left to form their own group to fight for the right to vote, where would women be now? No where... it was by coming together we made things happen. I only urge that people come together on issues rather than dividing them by sex; for doing so, even with the best intentions, is sexist.

[Butterfly North]

I never said I supported it and I never said it was a non-issue, just one that personally I care less about than the issue of female genital mutilation. I do oppose operating on the genitals of anyone without their consent (and if they are babies they can't give consent, obviously). HOWEVER the operation involved depends on the actual genitalia present, ie the sex of the victim. There is absolutely no logical reason why if an egalitarian is against one particular type of operation they must act against/speak out about another different operation in the same way. They can do this but they don't have to in order to qualify as an egalitarian.

So as an egalitarian I am concerned about rape culture in all its forms and no matter who the victim is. On the other hand there are campaigners out there who do focus their efforts specifically on preventing the rape of gay men (just one example), but that activity alone does not imply that they are being prejudiced against other groups in their attitude to rape. Sometimes existing knowledge, resources, social networks and so on can mean specialisation into acting against a particular type of injustice is the best way to make a difference. I'm very interested in women's issues and in class issues above racial issues and men's issues but that doesn't imply I'm not egalitarian.

[Sonic#]

HOWEVER the operation involved depends on the actual genitalia present, ie the sex of the victim.

I've been one of the ones to engage PF on this issue. My main position was to establish what you say, that the procedure must be studied for what it actually does, which in this case is dependent on the sex of the person involved. Instead, PF's posts have consistently tried to shoehorn the two together, making it seem as if FGM is equivalent to male circumcision. It isn't. He also chooses one side of medical studies and sticks to it, accuses those who don't agree to him of ignoring Islam, and the like. He's also used other flimsy notions of evidence, including an appeal to a heteronormative singular sense of what women want, a critique that couldn't help but strike this circumcised person as a form of victim-shaming.

Then he brings up male circumcision in other threads, ones not related to the concept at all.

So, PF, go strawman yourself.

[Rainbow Dolphins]

Well, I for one wasn't aware being opposed to men being raped immediately made it impossible to be opposed to women being raped, and vice versa. I'm glad you informed me it's impossible to do both.

Thank you for being a sarcastic asshole, pretty sure that's against the rules.

You know, I think you're right! Using sarcasm and dry wit to make a point is definitely not permitted here! Wait, nope, ctrl+F in the FAQs for "sarcastic asshole" isn't bringing anything up. Calling another member an asshole, incidentally, IS against the rules, so please try to avoid name-calling in the future.