Is it a coincidence?

On April 14, 2014 Laci Green tweeted:

is it a coincidence that the peace sign looks like a "V" and vagina starts with a "V"? i think not

I've seen/heard countless times, claims like "women are more cooperative than men" and "women are less violent than men" and "there would be no war if women ruled the world."

I have one thing to say in response to that:
About 5,800,000 results.

So, is it a coincidence that "violence" starts with a "V" and "vagina" starts with a "V"?

I happen to think it is, but if Laci Green thinks there's no coincidence between the first letter of "vagina" and the visual appearance of a peace sign, maybe I'm wrong and it's no coincidence those specific two words have the same first letter, either.

So you think you "experienced rapeculture" on the bus?

Some guy bothered you trying to get your attention and the fact that the crowd of people didn't rescue you from arguing with him means "rapeculture"?

I've seen a few rants to that effect lately and it's total bullshit.

Point #1:

People don't like to set themselves apart from the group, especially when it involves conflict or inconvenience.

How often do people go out of their way to get involved in any argument between two strangers?  How often do you?  When two people are screaming at each other about one of them taking the spot the other wanted in a parking lot, how likely is it that people are going to head away so they don't have to deal with it, rather than heading toward the noise to see if they can help?  How often do you see youtube videos where instead of stopping to help somebody getting their ass kicked, people stop to record it instead?  How often do you see people stranded on the side of the road for long periods of time while hundreds of cars pass by, simply because nobody stops to help?  Have you not heard of cases where somebody preventably died from an injury, hear attack, etc. while people were crowded around them, simply because nobody bothered to call 911?

Are people just not aware of the concept of "mob mentality" anymore?  People generally don't want to be the first person to assert themself and get involved in any case where there's a group doing nothing.  That's just the way it is with everything.  When you're yelling at somebody on a crowded bus, don't be surprised when nobody wants to stick their neck out by both asserting themself from the crowd and white-knighting for you.  It's not "rapeculture" that keeps them from doing it.  It's general human social nature.

It is the ultimate narcisism to see people not treating your issue any differently from every other issue simply because it is important to you and you interpret that as "a unique systemic form of oppression."

That's not "rapeculture." That's rape hysteria.

Point #2:

There is no guarantee that sticking your neck out for somebody else will be appreciated.

I've more than once had to put myself in danger to protect somebody and I can tell you, it's a crap shoot whether the person you're trying to help will end up being friend or foe based on your involvement.  Try to break up a fight between two people and they could both just end up fighting you, instead of each other.  There was a particular incident that stands out for me where a single guy, too drunk to stand reliably was about to get jumped by 6 larger, more coordinated guys who thought he was slinging ethnic slurs at them.  I physically had to place myself in front of him and fend off/absorb the brunt of their aggression so they didn't literally beat him to death.  After I'd called the police and they flat out refused to show up or even file a report on the incident (is that "hatecrimeculture"?) the guy who was only still breathing due to my interference on his behalf used that very breath to call me "asshole."

Put yourself first, get called "rape supporter" for not doing anything.  Put the "victim" first, maybe get called a rapist for your trouble.

That's not "rapeculture."  That's rape hysteria.

Point #3:

You were not being raped.

I know, it's super-duper scary with all the hysteria about rape these days, to have a man try to actually get your attention and -gasp- interact with you in some way.  Still, some dude bothering you on a crowded bus is not the same thing as him raping you.  Those people you think were participating in "rapeculture" probably could just see you were not in serious danger by the fact that:

a. you were sitting there arguing with him, instead of trying to get away from him
b. he was not physically attacking you
c. you were in a public setting with other people available to help if things went really bad
d. you were not asking for help from anybody else

If you want to require people to automatically rush to the aid of the damsel in (minor) distress every time some man says something she finds unpleasant, then I suggest you start a social movement to turn the clock back to before "equality" was a goal, because that's the "oppressive" way things used to be.  Men used to duel over stupid shit like "offending a lady."  If, however, you want to be taken seriously as a capable adult human, equal to men, you're going to have to "man up" and fight your own "battles" (to use the term loosely) on occasion.

Throwing a tantrum, because nobody stepped in to keep you from being talked to in a public setting isn't "equality."  That's "sense of entitlement."

And people not going out of their way to rescue you from arguing with somebody isn't "rapeculture."  The fact that you are calling it "rapeculture" is just rape hysteria.

Alison Tieman misrepresents NISVS definitions

In the debut Honey Badger Hangout, Alison Tieman (a.k.a. Typhon Blue) said this:

"Made to Penetrate is actually...apparently more tightly onto what we would consider rape than Rape is.  In other words, it really didn't include situations where men were drunk, because the wording was so ambiguous that it most likely excluded those situations with Made to Penetrate.  The wording about trying to capture sex while drunk was ambiguous and it did not appear to include men who were forced to penetrate while drunk."

"So in other words, the Made To Penetrate stat, if anything, is actually closer to our idea of forced sex than the Rape stat is."

Linkage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cf6SKsxUkQg#t=5355

Now, if you've read my post about Is "Gendered" Crime Really Gendered? you will notice a link to the NISVS study there as well as a truncated version of the definitions for "rape" and for "made to penetrate."  I'll include the full primary descriptions here, so you may see how "different" they really are.

• Rape is defined as any completed or attempted unwanted vaginal (for women), oral, or anal penetration through the use of physical force (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threats to physically harm and includes times when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent.

• Being made to penetrate someone else includes times when the victim was made to, or there was an attempt to make them, sexually penetrate someone without the victim's consent because the victim was physically forced (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threatened with physical harm, or when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent.

Maybe I'm just not seeing it correctly, but those seem to be basically the same description other than describing either being penetrated, or being made to penetrate.

Assuming I am seeing it correctly, the main difference if both were considered equal violations is actually going to be in the area of oral sex.  The description for Rape does include being forced to perform fellatio, but does not necessarily include being forced to perform or receive cunnilingus.  Made to Penetrate would intuitively include (although not explicitly defined) being forced to receive fellatio, but does not necessarily include being forced to perform or receive cunnilingus.  Either could include forced performing or receiving cunnilingus, but unlike fellatio, cunnilingus including penetration is not generally a given.

The real question is, is that minor gender-unequal consideration potentially responsible for the 3,000 victim difference between the two in the general 12 Month statistics?

When we're talking total numbers in excess of 1 million and considering that somebody committing sexual assault is going to be inherently more concerned about their own pleasure than the other person's, I'd personally tend to think it's likely enough to call it about even if you added forced cunnilingus to those numbers.




The other thing that's been bothering me, is considering all the attention being given to these particular statistics, no MRAs seem to have yet noticed and pointed out that especially when it comes to Intimate Partner Violence and the more general sexual assault classifications, like "Unwanted Sexual Contact" (especially Unwanted Sexual Contact within relationships) the percentages for male victims are actually higher than the percentages for female victims.

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf

Table 2.1 (Page 18)
12 month prevalence of Sexual Violence - Women:
Unwanted Sexual Contact:         2.2%        2,600,000 victims

Table 2.2 (Page 19)
12 month prevalence of Sexual Violence - Men: 
Unwanted Sexual Contact:         2.3%        2,565,000 victims

Table 4.1 (Page 38)
12 month prevalence of IPV Physical Violence - Women: 
Physical Violence:                     4.0%        4,741,000 victims

Table 4.2 (Page 38)
12 month prevalence of IPV Physical Violence - Men: 
Physical Violence:                     4.7%        5,365,000 victims

Table 4.5 (page 42)
12 month prevalence of IPV Sexual Violence - Women
Unwanted Sexual Contact:         0.5%        645,000 victims

Table 4.6 (page 43)
12 month prevalence of IPV Sexual Violence - Men
Unwanted Sexual Contact:         0.9%        1,031,000 victims

If you wanted to poke holes in the idea that "sexual assault and domestic violence are crimes primarily against women" there's not a much better way than to point out the fact that the study claims a higher percentage of male victims per year for both types of crime, is there?  Seems to me that should be step #1.

Agency: The word doesn't mean what you think it means.

In response to it being pointed out that the "rape culture" rhetoric is seeking to negate the agency of women, now the rhetoric is being tweaked to include claims of "society taking away my agency!" in an attempt to appropriate the thing being used to discredit the victim politics, for use in the victim politics.

News Flash
Agency is not something that can be taken away.

Using your agency can be discouraged.
Effectiveness of your agency can be obstructed.
And sure as hell, the "rape culture" rhetoric tries to obscure the agency of women.

Women still have every single bit of agency that men do.

The reason is, agency is the ability to speak and act on your own behalf. It is an inherent part of being any capable human. Like integrity, self esteem, etc. nobody has the capability to take away your agency. It is up to you to recognize it and decide whether you want to actually use it, regardless of how hard dimwitted popculture rhetoric tries to convince you that you have none.

And therefore when you claim that women, when exposed to the same influences, pressures and challenges men are, have had their agency taken away, while men haven't, you are suggesting that women are fundamentally inferior to men - that they never had any real agency to begin with. You are seeking to discourage, obstruct and obscure the agency of women. You are refusing to acknowledge the inherent power women have, being the same inherent power men have, to speak and act on their own behalf, a.k.a. "agency."

Trying to twist things around so you get to use a word in your rhetoric instead of other people using it to point out what's wrong with your rhetoric, doesn't make your rhetoric any more credible, or any less ridiculous.