I will be finding out the exact extent of that tomorrow in a discussion with him about his latest video on the Magic Sandwich Show at 2:00 CST. Private discussions with him on all topics related to feminism have been fruitless so far, but as they say hope springs eternal. Hopefully it will do some good.
What Thunderfoot knows about Rape Prevention.
Looking forward to the show…CWz.
Best of luck, but I won’t hold my breath. He seems incapable of understanding this subject.
Oh my giddy aunt! What have you done?
I hope it goes better for you than I would expect it to. (Have you seen this excellent takedown? http://somegreybloke.blogspot.com.au/ )
Ask him about the mountain lion.
I have at least one female friend who cannot watch the AronRa YouTube videos I want to link her because of guilt by association, basically. Such has been her treatment at the hands of MRAs, PUAs, their lackeys, and other rape apologists, that the mere thought of accidentally running into one through people they sometimes collaborate with is enough to send up her warning flags. Which is a shame, because those videos some of the best anti-creation material out there.
I’m not going to demand people break friendships or associations they don’t want to break, but it’d help to know your (collective) stance on feminism, harassment, rape apologia, the role of women in skepticism, elevator etiquette, tropes in video games, or whatever else you feel is encompassed in this issue. Or if you’ve already stated this somewhere, a link please (I did look, but couldn’t find anything). That way I can hopefully say to her, “Look: this is where they stand. They’re not Thunderfoot. They’re actually quite nice.”
I thought that Aron’s support of feminism is well known. http://skepchick.org/2012/08/speaking-out-against-hate-directed-at-women-aron-ra/
As for me, I have posts on this very blog and a podcast called The Nones that tackles these topics.
It is a real frustration to myself that Thunderfoot makes such great videos and then starts producing “those” videos. I believe they are damaging to the movement. How can I make an argument that theological states are bound to fail as they are patriarchal and exclude 50% of the population from society when some great you tubers are doing the same?
I found the vid. Right of the bat I’m disappointed that ratings are disabled.
Oh wait, that was the wrong vid. Aron, can you send me a link to this discussion with thunderf00t?
http://www.magicsandwichshow.com/
I would be interested to hear a show with the topic “Are people responsible to act in the interest of their own safety and security?”.
Has that been done? If not, it would be interesting to hear the topic deliberated by folks from all sides.
I would be interested to hear a show with the topic “Are people responsible to act in the interest of their own safety and security?”.
Survey says “Our culture doesn’t think so, for many people.”
For example, Thunderf00t goes out in the wild, and voluntarily exposes himself to the risk of being eaten by wild animals — clearly, if he *is* responsible for doing so, then he’s being very irresponsible.
The more interesting question is “Why do we view some people as being responsible for it, while other people aren’t.”
I think the answer there is so easy it doesn’t need a whole show.
1. People should do (as a consequence of utility, not as a moral imperative) as much as they feel comfortable doing to protect themselves from all forms of harm.
2. It is society’s job to ensure that #1 is unneccesary (moral imperative on all people).
What, you actually think no one has discussed this topic before? Seriously? It must take monumental effort to stay as stupid as you are for so long.
That would be about as interesting as a show on the topic of “will the sun rise in the East tomorrow.”
The more interesting topic; the one Thunferf00t and his crowd keep trying to avoid, is what can we do to better educate people (especially men, since the overwhelming majority of rapists are men) about issues of consent, sexual autonomy and respect for sexual boundaries?
People, especially women, have that first conversation, the one about taking precautions and how to protect yourself, all the time. The latter conversation is the one we need to be having now. I honestly don’t understand why there should be such furious opposition to doing that.
As for what Thinderf00t knows about rape prevention, as someone who used to teach self defense classes i can tell you from what I’ve heard from him he has an extremely superficial understanding of the issue at best. That last video of his is a mess of tortured bad analogies, false assumptions, sloppy reasoning and outright victim blaming. Be like a wasp? A mountain lion protecting it’s cubs is just like a rapist? Women risk being raped because they dress badly have bad posture and aren’t honest with men?
Really?
Maybe he was just shitfaced drunk at the time; it’s hard to believe he’s actually that ignorant.
“The more interesting topic; the one Thunferf00t and his crowd keep trying to avoid, is what can we do to better educate people (especially men, since the overwhelming majority of rapists are men) about issues of consent, sexual autonomy and respect for sexual boundaries?”
Where in the video does he say we shouldn’t? I believe the entire purpose of the video is that saying “it isn’t your fault” gives the impression that there was NOTHING they could have done, and how is that not saying “you were just destined to be a victim”?
“People, especially women, have that first conversation, the one about taking precautions and how to protect yourself, all the time. The latter conversation is the one we need to be having now. I honestly don’t understand why there should be such furious opposition to doing that.”
And if that were all that were necessary, it would have worked by now, but it isn’t. Society as a whole is cultured around religion, and most, if not all, degrade women to property or objects. Is it any wonder that the rape culture is very prevalent in the Middle East? Why then should you just tell people to not rape, when it has the same effect, in a religious culture as this one, as saying don’t eat meat?
“As for what Thinderf00t knows about rape prevention, as someone who used to teach self defense classes i can tell you from what I’ve heard from him he has an extremely superficial understanding of the issue at best.”
I think that is over-simplifying it, and you are wrong. He is saying two things: ONE- the only people that KNOW whether a rape happened are the supposed victim and the accused rapist. TWO- Sometimes people claim to be a victim of a rape, and they were not. Are you going to claim to know if a person was raped or not? Even juries have a problem with doing so.
“That last video of his is a mess of tortured bad analogies, false assumptions, sloppy reasoning and outright victim blaming. Be like a wasp? A mountain lion protecting it’s cubs is just like a rapist? Women risk being raped because they dress badly have bad posture and aren’t honest with men?”
Bad analogies? Why? Because he is correct in that the BLAME is on the rapist, but the RESPONSIBILITY is on US, the society that fails to prevent rape, and the victim who, if they were able to avoid it, did little to nothing to avoid the risks of that rape. Neither cops, military, FBI, CIA, nor gods (apparently), can be with the possible victim every moment of that person’s life. WHO is going to take responsibility for the safety of YOU if you don’t?
His analogy of being in the wild was the same as a person going to a bar, KNOWING there are other drunk people, some of who are the opposite sex, that MIGHT try to get too touchy, and could try something. Just as it isn’t his fault a mountain lion attacked him, it IS his responsibility to protect himself from all risks he doesn’t want to fall VICTIM to. Same reason for bouncers at clubs, strip joints, etc. Stars that wear expensive jewelry have body guards, why? It certainly isn’t their fault if a thief tries to steal their “bling”, yet the guards are there anyways, why? Knowing it isn’t your fault does so little to comfort a victim, anyone saying it should be kicked in the head.
“Maybe he was just shitfaced drunk at the time; it’s hard to believe he’s actually that ignorant.”
Which, according to your philosophy would not make the opinions his fault, nor his responsibility.
His entire video states the following: Rape and bad sex regret are too close to just call it rape ad-hoc. The rapist is at fault, but the victim, in some situations, bears responsibility for their own safety. Teach both, not just one side of it.
Thunderfoot has gone off into lala land. His wasp thing shows that even someone who is well educated can be a complete idiot.
I won’t be holding my breath for Phil Mason’s road-to-Damascus conversion on this topic. Practically everything he’s said to date on the subjects of feminism, harrasment and rape has been a noisy, embarrassing train wreck; his response to criticism is invariably to shout louder. I’m sure Aron knows the guy better than me, but I’d find it difficult to believe if I was told private Phil was substantially different from youtube Phil (on this topic at least).
Jebus, I finally gave up on that. 4 men lecturing women on how to avoid rape, 1 woman who only got a few opportunities to say anything. Bleh.
No one gives a shit about your opinion. I can’t wait until you get arrested for what you did to Michael Shermer. Then your undesirable ass can be shut once and for all. Hopefully you will get some first hand experience in trying to avoid rape while you rot in prison.
My, aren’t you some sort of asshole. Also, “arrested”. Riiiight.
PZ Myers is a criminal.
You are off topic.
Can you prove that? Wouldn’t want you getting arrested for libel…>.o
@lilandra
I have to post here because PZ Myers blocked me on his blog!
@A Hermit
HYPOCRISY ALERT! HYPOCRISY ALERT! Can YOU prove that the accusations he made were TRUE? HE made the accusations. The onus is on HIM.
If you post here you will discuss the topic. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2013/01/29/this-blog-is-moderated/ There are other places to discuss other topics.
ROFLMAO
deservedly so.
I hope your tenure here is as brief. I just started coming here, and I’m already sick of you.
Also, you banned me from your blog, so I will have to respond to your latest blog post here.
It is incredibly sexist to call her a “token woman”, as though she was on there just because she is a woman. Unless you actually believe that, in which case, she shouldn’t have been there at all!
Oh, you’re whining because PZ banned you. At a guess, you were banned for being a misogynist asshole. Keep whining, sonny, I’m sure you’re impressing everyone with what a BraveHero you are.
Actually, I was banned because I was pointing out his hypocrisy when he demanded someone to provide evidence for an accusation, even though HE has made RAPE allegations against Michael Shermer WITHOUT evidence.
But it’s not unusual for feminists to get facts wrong.
If you’re talking about the “live grenade” blog, he did provide evidence. It’s just not the type of evidence anybody would wish for (sources who don’t want to be public, character evidence, etc), and it’s not as strong as we would like.
PZ had enough, though, that he felt compelled to share, even if it wasn’t the “slam-dunk, convinces 99% of us” type of stuff that we would all wish to have about a serious claim. He posed it as a moral and ethical dilemma, even, so I have a very hard time understanding how you have somehow twisted this blog post into something it is not.
Perhaps you are considering a different blog post?
I am talking about that blog post.
“he did provide evidence”
No he didn’t! Anonymous allegations are NOT evidence. PZ Myers is a moron and a liar.
Banned for repeated off topic posting. Please discuss the topic of this post.
Perhaps we are laboring under different definitions of evidence.
In my head, evidence is information that preferentially supports one conclusion over another. In the case of the PZ blog, the evidence I absorbed was that PZ Myers reported about several parties who did not wish to be identified in regard to an incident that either happened or didn’t happen.
In the universe where it didn’t happen, I have to explain that evidence (which I’m not going to entertain here). In a universe where it did happen, the evidence is kind of like the sort of stuff we would expect to see.
Prodegtion, victim accounts are evidence you moron. So is the eye witness evidence that was eventually added to the post. So is the the even more posts within the thread giving evidence to a consistent pattern of Shermer getting women drunk so that he can attempt to “have sex” with them. This was explained to you by Alex Gabriel before he banned you for stupidity. And you were banned for being a nasty little shit towards women and other commenters since PZ seems to have removed all of your posts and he only does that for the worst or slymepitters.
It’s not sexist to say that she was being used as a token when she was *actually* given very little time to speak. And “token” is not an insult directed against her, but against whoever was in charge of deciding who would come on the show.
And you are aware that MEN are more likely to be assaulted at night than women, right?
Oh, fuck you. You’re not even a real scientist. You have no reason to exist.
Does the expression “non sequitur” mean anything to you? How about the concept that assault ≠ rape?
Would you like to place a bet on whether or not this cretin’s brain is penis-shaped?
What are you saying? That rape is worse than assault? Rape IS assault!
Rape is assault, but not all assaults are rape. Rape is a particularly damaging form of assault and as such gets treated as the unique issue it is.
So, you ARE saying that rape is worse than assault. Right.
Assault is the combination of 1) threatening another with unwanted contact and 2) having the ability to carry that out.
So, yes, dumb-dumb, rape is worse than assault. I think just about anyone on Earth would rather be afraid of unwanted contact than actually battered (that’s the unwanted touching).
Doubtthat, I think you need to revise your definition of assault there. Threats and ability does not equate the actual commission of the crime. It’s the doing an assault that makes one guilty of such a crime. People threaten each other all the time and do nothing and we all have the capacity to do harm, yet do not.
Mr Dave;
Actually that’s the legal definition f assault:
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/assault
“An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm….
…The act required for an assault must be overt. Although words alone are insufficient, they might create an assault when coupled with some action that indicates the ability to carry out the threat. A mere threat to harm is not an assault; however, a threat combined with a raised fist might be sufficient if it causes a reasonable apprehension of harm in the victim.”
Actually carrying out that threat would be assault and battery. If the battery involves a sexual act that’s assault, battery and rape.
I agree, PZ. Men have the right to defame other men with unsubstantiated anonymous rape allegations, but they certainly do not have the right to discuss rape for any other reason.
WIN! That’s a good one!
Oh Bobo2, those reports are anonymous to you and others but not PZ. In fact there are corroborating reports from others In the thread itself saying reporting on Micheal Shermer’s behavior and other people emailed PZ to give corroborating eye witness testimony. The fact that you don’t take eye witness and victim accounts from women speaks loudly toward your character and how awful it is. And In addition the thread was about going public with warnings that many women already receive about Shermer in private and warning as many women as possible to hopefully prevent any more incidences.
^^ don’t bother, arawhon, these clowns came here to whinge, not listen.
in fact, proddy refused to listen on the OP he’s whinging about too. I was there. that’s why his ass was tossed.
Where’s the link to the actual video? I can’t find it via the front page.
I couldn’t find it on the official site, either, but I found it on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa91a6GGOu0
The website needs work, it shouldn’t be this hard to find the latest episode. I’ll often go straight to the RSS feed if I can as that’s usually a lot more straight forward, but the RSS link for the MSS webpage didn’t give me an RSS feed. Meh.
I just watched about 20 minutes of AronRa trying to talk to various people about feminism.
It was awful. A female panelist, who was one of only two people making sense (the other being Aron), was repeatedly shouted down, so badly she stormed off the broadcast.
It was the first time I’d seen male skeptics speak about feminism “in the flesh” so to speak. It was apparent that these people had never considered the arguments before. They were coming up with stupid old stuff the rest of us had settled decades ago.
Much of the atheist community seems to be a dreadful intellectual backwater – stuck somewhere in the early 1960s.
It was me, who stormed off.
You did? I couldn’t stand to listen any longer, so I missed that. But good for you — that discussion should have been you vs. Thunderf00t, but everyone else seemed to be determined to talk over you, or for you, or against you.
OK, I just saw that part where the asshole kept talking over you. His excuse was a 3 second lag. That doesn’t fly: he was constantly interrupting you and not letting you finish your point.
Your departure was entirely justified. What a gang of wankers.
I felt slightly uneasy engaging TF on this. I know how truculent he can be. But 3 of the 4 others on the show are family friends. Even with a small amount of friendliness from TF, it was still difficult not to get angry. Especially when he compared something I said to “batshit crazy” feminists. Most everyone was quick to point out the fearsome, crazy feminist that they know is out there somewhere that makes feminism distasteful and arguments against TF’s arguments somehow magically invalid. I hate that argument for a number of reasons.
I had hoped to reach some reasonable people that were lurking perhaps that I couldn’t otherwise reach, and raise awareness of rape culture. It was a mess. Even most of the callers some who sat around for hours defended Thunderfoot. One guy was talking about a book he had read on the biology of rape.
First it started off with him and TF that rape is naturally selected for because rapists produce offspring forcibly. Then I pointed out that human males help raise their young, and that has contributed to more reproductive success. Also, rape is not the normal method of human reproduction. The goal posts moved to that guy that for whatever reason can’t get a partner needing to rape people. So, I said if there is some biological reason that he doesn’t attract mates, then his offspring would be likely not have very much success either. The goalposts moved to every man for whatever reason may resort to rape if he doesn’t get sex. It sounded an awful lot like support for Schrodinger’s Rapist. But I didn’t call him on it because that argument is a quagmire.
I should look up the book; I wonder how scientific it actually is.
lilandra, I watched that entire mess, all 6 plus hours of stupidity and handwaving away the problems. “We aren’t blaming the victims, but there are things victims can do to not get raped, and you should do them, but oh, it isn’t your fault, you just have responsibility for the things you can control, like your age and attractiveness” How the fuck does that work? Just wanted to say, thank you and Aron for being the sole voices of sanity in that bunch.
“I should look up the book; I wonder how scientific it actually is”
Wikipedia entry on the book here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Natural_History_of_Rape
Looking through that, it seems like there are some major flaws in the premise and/or conclusions the book reaches.
I watched only ~15minutes of it. I noticed that even though you and Aron were basically making the same points, by and large, he was mostly allowed to finish talking, whereas you were consistently talked over, even from the beginning. I gave up in irritation. Because, uh, yeah.
When dudes will listen to the exact same argument from another dude that they dismiss out of hand from a woman, that pretty much tells me all I need to know about their opinions on my equality.
@lilandra
Coincidentally I was just watching a fantastic deconstruction of the Mens Rights Movement that specifically mentions that book and its authors. I think the most relevant part to it starts at around 34:50 in part 2.
http://youtu.be/4g74sNRtyrw?t=34m50s
As for the show, I was tearing my hair out. Actually shouting out loud at the screen. Thunderf00t himself was childish, dismissive, smug, patronising, disrespectful, and obviously took nothing at all on board. Par for the course. He was just amused that the little people, some of whom presumably count him as a friend, were daring to even slightly question him. Who the fuck does this guy think he is again?
Its not like the others questioned him that much either. In fact they were bending themselves over backwards so hard at times I thought at least one of them might actually get a real life spinal injury from it. After he left one of them was referring to him as if he was a mystical being who’d handed over stone tablets in the form of youtube videos that can be interpreted in various positive ways. Like they were religious texts, except less coherent.
The callers should have been dismissed after the first 5 or so minutes, or after they’d made the point they wanted to make. They hung around like a bad smell and only served to repeat the same tired lame points as the others. Worse than that, the moderator started to allot them more time than either you or your husband.
I could go on, but i’d be here all day. You deserve some kind of medal for putting up with that shit for more than 5 minutes.
Hi Lilandra,
I watched the entire last half of the show and I would’ve stormed off too. This is the same dude who described sex as ‘conquest’ and the same asses who all said they wouldn’t teach their sons not to rape but would teach them how to be good human beings. I wondered why they took such exception to that but then I realized that what they were saying represented precisely rape culture and why would they teach their sons anything else but more of the same?
Teaching a boy to be a good person is not the same as teaching him about rape and how to handle himself.
I was so disappointed in how they treated you, the only woman on the panel for any length of time. They really were ignorant and they couldn’t even agree on the damn dictionary definition of feminism. Probably because they imagined a woman who refused their advances and put them in their place for being entitled assholes. I mean really, the definition IS the definition. The methodology of each feminist group is irrelevant to whether or not you agree with women having equality.
I call it like it is. Misogynist pieces of crap. Aside from you and Aron of course.
What a farce. A group of mostly men discussing a topic that concerns mostly women.
Yeah, I know that men are raped as well, why isn’t Thunderf00tinmouth patronizing them with his unique and original advice that every woman alive has heard over 9000 times ever since she was five years old?
The point wasn’t to provide “unique and original advice”. The point was to show that feminists are increasing a woman’s chance of rape when they suggest that they needn’t take steps to minimize their risk. You’d know that even you had even a semblance of a clue.
Who the hell is actually suggesting that anyone “needn’t take steps to minimize their risk…” ?
Some of us are pointing out that minimizing risk is something pretty much everyone already does and we need to do something from the other side of the problem; to change the culture by educating people, especially young men, about what rape really is, about issues of consent and sexual autonomy. But that’s not the same as telling people not to take precautions. You’d have to be really clueless, or drunk, or just dishonest to say that it was…
No feminist ever suggested not taking precautions and acting responsibly, you are either willfully misrepresenting our point or not all that smart.
We KNOW all those things, and we do change our behaviour to minimize risks to our safety.
We have heard all of this shit before. Now,we’d like to put the blame where it belongs: On the rapist.
Parse this quote from a rape survivor:
“Left to my own devices, I never would have been raped. The rapist was really the key component to the whole thing. I was sober; I was wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt; I was at home; my sexual history was, literally, nonexistent—I was a virgin; I struggled; I said no. There have been times since when I have been walking home, alone, after a few drinks, wearing something that might have shown a bit of leg or cleavage, and I wasn’t raped. The difference was not in what I was doing. The difference was the presence of a rapist.”
Bobo2 @ 15.1
I have never heard of any feminist suggesting that women should not take precautions to minimise their risk of being raped. Could you please supply at least one link to something for corroboration?
I have read plenty of women writing that it would be nice if they did not have to take such precautions; that it would be nice if they were not blamed for their rape for failing on one point on an indeterminately long list of precautions dictated to them after the fact; that, perhaps in some ideal world, it would be nice if they did not have to take such precautions.
How do you reconcile your position with the real world, were women get raped at home, in bed, sober, by their partners or relatives? How do you reconcile your position with the vilification of women as ‘misandrist’ as soon as they mention “Schrodinger’s Rapist” or at the mere suggestion that certain behaviour in an enclosed space makes them feel uncomfortable and it would be nice if certain men showed a little bit of empathy in such circumstances?
And of course if they take all those precautions, dress like my Mennonite Grandmother, never let someone buy them a drink and act like wasps around an angry mountain lion as T-foot advises these same condescending pompous patriarchal asses will complain about how those woman are unattractive, don’t care about their appearance, are cold and unapproachable and are just a bunch of feminazis because they treat all those nice guys like potential rapists…
It’s heads I win, tails you lose…
Name the feminists who are actually saying that — with citations — or admit you’re full of shit.
No one has ever said to take no precautions. Feminists just point out that many of the alleged ‘precautions’ given women to avoid rape are useless, or things that women have already heard, or are based on a serious misunderstanding of what most rapes are like.
I’m not certain where the confusion lies in all of this. If a person is raped, whose fault is it? The fucking rapist’s. End of argument.
Rape is bad. Got it? Freedom to dress as one pleases regardless of chromosomes is good. Got it? Wait. Seriously? You’re already confused?
Okay, maybe a compromise. If women share blame for dressing “like they want it” then men can be arrested for dressing like a rapist. Just like a woman can wear a burqa and still be raped, men will be arrested regardless of what they’re wearing, so long as at least one woman feels he’s watching her too closely and, well, she knows what he wants.
Women don’t share any blame for the way they dress.
That being said, I grew up in Detroit and there are parts of town where I just wouldn’t go because of the unscrupulous nature of the characters there. I of course was perfectly free to go there and if I got shot, it wouldn’t be my fault, it would be the fault of the miscreant who shot me…but I would still be shot.
The importance here is the order and emphasis on rape prevention practices. The problem with Tf00t and that crowd is that they basically say “don’t go into rapey areas and cover your (body parts).” They leave it at that. Of course, this is like slapping a band-aid on a Staph infection. Properly educating people to NOT RAPE is the first and foremost important practice. “Stay out of shady areas” should be much further down the list.
Relevant:
http://skirt.com/files/xinha_images/6004/court.jpg
IOW, Thunderfoot’s argument is the same as Bob Newhart’s….
Particularly seeing as “shady areas” includes your own bedroom in your own house with your own family being the only people around.
Out of context and strawman much? We all know that’s not what was intended, nor what any reasonable reader would understand it to mean. This makes you dishonest.
What was intended then? It’s not at all obvious to me. Guess I’m not a reasonable reader.
I also consider myself to be a reasonable reader. Could you please explain in what ways mildlymagnificent @ 17 is out of context, strawmanning and being dishonest?
mildlymagnificent is demonstrating that Thunderf00t’s advice isn’t even applicable to the majority of rape victims. Most women are raped by someone they know, and further, someone they trust, like a significant other or a friend.
Thunderfart is being deliberately ignorant on this. He keeps telling women to protect themselves by doing irrelevant things that they already know (and do) that doesn’t prevent them from being raped. AT. ALL. How, pray tell, is his advice even remotely helpful, then?
On my college campus, there was one summer where a streak of evidently random rapes occurred in one part of town. We had a few seminars in the dorms concerning the idea of sexual consent and rape prevention…and it was shocking just how many women didn’t know rape prevention was a thing. I don’t think it’s safe to say that all or even the vast majority of women have been told or practice the easy stuff like “stay out of shady areas alone at night,” at least not in my experience.
But again, this is still secondary to educating people that it’s wrong to rape. I would like to thank EnlightenmentLiberal for understanding what I meant in my first post.
Agreed.
I don’t see how any reasonable person could interpret “stay out of shady areas”
1- to include their own bedroom
2- to not include a bad part of town, late at night, alone, that’s literally quite dark.
I am for whatever achieves the best happiness, safety, freedom, well-being of people, and the other values of humanism. It is unfortunate what society we live in. Similar to how we teach drivers to drive defensively, we ought to teach all people reasonable effective strategies – if there are any – to avoid harm.
IMHO, an entirely apt metaphor:
We do need to change the culture. When a crime happens, we should not talk at all about how they were not driving defensively enough. I never want to see the police, or the news, or the prosecutor talk about how the drunk driver accident could have been avoided if the other driver just was a little more cautious and defensive behind the wheel.
Instead, we need to find the criminal, and prosecute them.
We also need to change the culture of how it’s ok to drink and drive. We need to instill that it’s bad, and dangerous, and actually hurts people. We need to change the culture so that other people look down on people who drink and drive.
However, a minimal amount of education based on the facts – if any – should be done to new drivers.
End metaphor.
There’s nothing wrong with telling people the sad facts of the world and what is likely to get them hurt or not. I suspect that walking alone, in the dark, in a bad part of town, is a good way to get yourself hurt. How much more likely? Maybe not that much. If you do get hurt, will I ever tell you that you could have avoided it? Nope. If I see the news or the police saying how you could have done better to avoid it, I’ll tell them the f off.
But, I care about the well-being of people, and ignoring some realities of what is dangerous and not is idiotic.
PS: I haven’t seen the video, I have no clue what a wasp or lion or whatever is meant as a metaphor for, and I think all of that alpha male bullshit of TF is bullshit. I don’t know what works, and in the short term I’m only defending the idea that walking in a crime-ridden part of town, at night, alone, is a bad idea. I lived near Detroit. You could not pay me enough money to go to the east side alone at night.
To be clear, another example: Remember LeVar’s “driving while black” “educational” video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-ckDJ3xTaE
Is that victim blaming? No. LeVar honestly (and maybe correctly) feared for his son’s life if he didn’t follow his advice, and that’s why he taught him that. If he does not follow it and he gets shot, does it make it his fault? No.
Now, if he did get shot, and I immediately posted something like “Well, he should have followed his father’s advice” and nothing more, then that is victim blaming. Context is everything here. Teaching defensive practices when they’re reasonable and we can show that they work, that’s a good thing. However, if a reasonable person reading what you wrote would understand that it’s black kid’s fault and not the cop for unjustly shooting him, then there’s a problem.
Moreover, teaching these defensive practices to the exclusion of all else is a problem. We should also be working to stop cops from unjustly shooting black kids (and other people from unjustly shooting black kids). We want to improve their life, improve justice, and we want to make it so they can act reasonably and normally without fear of getting shot.
So, it’s easy to read something out of context as what an MRA asshat might say, but you should not overreact to people who are suggesting reasonable defensive practices. For my part, whenever I even think about writing about defensive practices, I know I have to post a whole page of text to make my position clear – I know I have to do that to be an effective communicator. It takes that much to let everyone know that I think that our culture has a problem which we need to fix, and I am not excusing the rapist in any way, nor victim blaming in any meaningful sense. It’s unfortunate that our culture and this conversation in our culture is so fucked up, but I do what I can do to help.
…you should not overreact to people who are suggesting reasonable defensive practices.
YOU should not so stupidly misrepresent what we’re responding to here.
For my part, whenever I even think about writing about defensive practices…
What the hell makes you think you need to write about defensive practices? Do you really think there’s a huge demographic out there who’ve never heard of the idea of taking reasonable precautions to minimize the chance of harm? What can you possibly write that hasn’t already been said by parents, teachers, principals, cops, RAs, karate teachers, self-help coaches, groundskeepers, etc. to people at all ages alraedy? I have yet to meet anyone, male or female, who hasn’t been hearing such advice since they were in kindergarten.
That’s part of teh problem with you “defensive practices” advocates: too many of you seem to think you’re the keepers of some monumental secret that you have to impress on the rest of us sheeple every chance you get, regardless of what the original conversatin was about.
I read the youtube comments on the video, because there you will see numbnuts being honest about what they really think.
by and large, most of those defending thunderfoot were saying that they thought things women did could PROVOKE rape.
this is nothing more than victim blaming.
fuck thunderfoot, fuck his followers.
right in the damn ear.
it’s the nonsense that rapes happen in ‘bad areas’ as opposed to just normal ones, frequently committed by males who are social offenders, not people who leap out of bushes or act in a way as to make them obviously dangerous to anyone. The advice for safety doesn’t work.
It’s also different if a Black person gives his son advice, and Random Man gives ALL WOMEN advice, and too often, the first thing that comes up with a rape is *why didn’t she do X Y Z?*
I don’t actually know much about this, and thus I will not argue against that particular.
However, I find it implausible that there is absolutely no advice we can give people which is analogous to “defensive driving” . So, we should find out what is effective, and then we should teach people it. This is in no way victim blaming. (For additional information, please see my two lengthy posts above.)
I don’t know if I’m actually disagreeing with you. This is just a clarification of my position.
My vagina is not a car. I do not need a licence to own one because it is me. Defensive vagina having should look like what exactly? How is a rapist like a bad driver? Do people get distracted and accidentally rape? How does that work? After all, I need you to teach me how not to be raped. I have two daughters. Your imput cvould clearly save us all, so be specific.
Jesus, you sexist rape apologists are thick as bricks.
There is advice, but it is the most difficult kind of advice to give. It’s the kind of advice that says, hey I’ve heard some really bad things about the guys at theta house, or hey that guy over there was holding your drink, or hey don’t be in a car with that guy, or go down that alley. Specific, timely advice that removes the social cover rapists enjoy far, far too often.
It is the actions that too often don’t happen, like when the girl from Stubenville was being carried out of the party, why did no one shout, “Put her the fuck down you ass hats! She is not a toy for you”.
General advice, like be more aggressive with your body language, is useless, and patronizing. If you are talking to a child, or someone very naive, it is possible that very basic advice will be useful, but that basic advice is handy only on a hugely general level. Any advice which avoids violent crime covers all of it, there is no need to get specific about rape, be careful of strangers, and extend trust slowly is universal.
If you are giving advice appropriate to a child to an adult you are infantalizing them, think about that, why is it so easy to give childlike, basic, novice level social interaction advice to grown women?
Giving advice to women of the, did you lock your pants, variety is the psychological equivalent of praying for forgiveness, you get to feel better but you don’t actually accomplish anything. Except the advice adds condescending to a real person on top of the mental masturbation.
So why fight so hard for some platitude that will help if only science could find it for us?
@Jackie teh kitteh cuddler
The only one being unreasonable is you. I used an analogy to explain certain things, and then I explained htem in great detail, in that post and others. Nowhere did I even mention the word “license”.
What would “defensive vagina” look like? I’m not going to get dragged into the specifics as that is a discussion for which I am ill-prepared to do. However, I will do this. Do you think that there are absolutely no practices which you could employ to prevent getting raped, at all? That seems to be your position. What do you think of the following practices? Staying in groups instead of being alone, not going to a frat party alone and getting drunk until you pass out, and so on. We can dispute the relative effectiveness of those things and others and I am more than willing to listen and learn in such conversations because honestly I don’t know.
However, 1- I think it’s insane to say that there are no alternatives to some behaviors which can make you less likely to be a victim, and 2- I think that in the proper context teaching useful defensive habits is a good thing and it is not victim blaming. Please see my rather lengthy posts above for more information, as I do not want to just copy and paste it here. The short of it is that this should be in no way misconstrued as lessening the culpability of the rapist, and lessening the need to change our culture to make rape both despised in the culture and make rape less common in the culture. Further, this should not be misconstrued as a defense of whatever idiotic “defensive techniques” that TF was endorsing.
The most predictive factors are not things that people have control over. To wit:
-age (rapists attack children and immature adults–most victims are under the age of 20)
-gender (rapists attack women far more than men)
-developmental or physical disability (rapists prefer non-able-bodied targets)
-race (rapists tend to rape women of color more)
-sexual orientation (“corrective rape” of gay men and women is a thing)
-gender presentation (rapists tend to rape non-gender-conforming people more than they rape cis people)
-class (rapists prefer poor victims)
Clothing has no effect at all.
Impractical. Nobody can walk around with a group of friends all the time. Also, what if the rapist is among your group? This is more probable than that someone will be jumping out from behind a parked car to rape you. Rapists have been known to pose as a protective friend, helping their friend reach her home safely, or giving her a place to stay for the night, then assaulting them once the destination is reached.
Banning fraternities would probably be more effective in the long run.
It’s true that rapists like to use intoxicants, most often alcohol, to facilitate their assaults, but the act of drinking is hardly predictive of sexual assault. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been drunk, even very drunk, even in the company of strange men, and not been raped. Moreover, I kinda like going out and drinking every once in a while. I refuse to accept that it’s easier for everyone if I just stay home so rapists can prey on some other women who aren’t smart enough to realize that rape is an allegedly predictable outcome of drinking with your friends.
Any other factors you’re curious about the “effectiveness” of? By far the most effective way to avoid rape is to be male. After that, be white, rich, able-bodied, straight, and cis. Waaay after that, constrict your social life so that rapists can target people besides you. Somehow, nowhere on YOUR list is teaching people to recognize what rapists’ tactics look like, to teach what enthusiastic consent looks like, to teach LEOs and medical professionals what reaction to rape really looks like so they don’t systematically blow off rape victims and prevent them from reporting, and many other possible remedies whose effectiveness is far better evidenced than any you’ve named so far.
What is it that gives men this amazing sense of entitlement. You admit you don’t know, yet you feel it’s okay to blather on and one, being offensively wrong in the process, and still be treated nicely.
And this is what we get, EnlightenmentLiberal. We state our opinion in the best way possible, we seek to understand, and yet we still get called “rape apologists.” I’m not sure it’s possible for us to do anything right.
Uh, Sally? EnlightenmentLiberal SPECIFICALLY asked what Jackie teh kitteh cuddler thought of the practices s/he listed. S/he ASKED about them. S/he is not blathering, and neither am I.
Also, the irony gets a little thick when you call staying in groups “impractical” (although your point about rapists often being trusted friends is valid) and yet don’t see that same problem with banning fraternities (a stereotype that I personally know is inaccurate aside).
What do you want us to say? EnlightenmentLiberal expressed the desire to learn more, and all you did was piss on them. What the fuck do you want from us?
So, let me get this straight. As far as I can tell, you either think 1- there is absolutely no practical risk prevention advice on the individual level for even a single person on this planet when it comes to avoiding rape, or 2- even if there is some practical advice, talking about it is necessarily victim blaming and necessarily props up the rape culture no matter the delivery or context.
Do you subscribe to either position? Both? I think position 1 is highly implausible. Position 2 is asinine. I’m rather lost as to what you actually think, and right now getting out what you actually think is like pulling teeth.
You should actually watch T-foot’s video before commenting on the reaction to it. I f you do hat you might understand why people are having a less than positive reaction to your ignorance here…
@A Hermit
So, your argument is “T-Foot is an idiot and advancing rape apologetics, and thus you should shut up when you see someone abusing someone else acting reasonably here, and you should shut up about what kind of public education and public policy we want” ? Brilliant!
I’m going out of my way to try and be nice. In normal circumstances, I would react with vulgarities to the rudeness that you A Hermit just showed me.
And frankly, you can call me ignorant, but I’m going to need a lot more convincing to start seriously considering that passing out drunk at a frat party, alone, does not statistically-significantly affect the chances that you’re going to be raped – or robbed – and that avoiding that scenario is somehow unreasonable or impractical.
As another example, surely we can teach people to be somewhat careful of accepting drinks at bars from strangers when it’s delivered by the stranger and not by the bartender. And watch your drink, just like you would watch your purse or wallet. This is something I already practice.
It is totally unfair to judge me and other people by the actions of someone completely unrelated. I have went out of my way to distance myself from TF’s idiotic antics. Just because someone is acting like an idiot is not an excuse to shut down a reasonable conversation, and to call reasonable people sexist rape apologists. I have been completely mishandled in this conversation. Frankly, what I would like to see is the mob descend on that person who called me a rape apologist, but instead I am the one who is getting accosted. So, no, you’ll understand if I don’t just shut up and surrender.
And see prodegtion above for what happens when you try to do that.
@ EnlightenmentLiberal October 9,
I was responding to this comment of yours :
Thing is, you’ve jumped into a conversation about a video which you admit you haven’t even watched, you tell us in another comment that you “don’t know much about this” and then proceeded to lecture people about why their responses to the video were wrong. You might think I’m being rude, but if I am it’s in response to your even greater rudeness. Do you even realize how patronizing and condescending it is of you to start preaching elementary level stuff at people who have long since moved past it as if they don’t already know all of that? You are not being reasonable at all, you are presuming that your kindergarten level advice is somehow the most important thing to talk about when the rest of us have graduated to something a few academic levels above that…
Yes, and it’s something the vast majority of us already practice. It’s trivial advice, because we’ve all heard it before ad nauseum and it isn’t advice that even begins to address the other side of the problem ie the rapists behaviour. What some of us are trying to do, and what Tfoot is resisting, is to move the conversation beyond what victims can do to protect themselves (because that’s frankly been talked to death) and focus on the other side of the equation. So when you jump in and start prattling on about dark alleys and making bad analogies to defensive driving you are turning that conversation back onto the victim’s behaviour when everyone else is trying to talk about the rapist’s. That’s why you get lumped in with the rape apologists. you are doing their work for them.
Now I’m charitable enough to grant that this is not your intention, but it is the effect of what you are doing; you are trying to get people focus on the victim’s behaviour and not talk about the rapist’s and about how we change the culture to educate people about consent and sexual autonomy and boundaries and all these other issues which may actually do more to reduce the incidence of rape than rehashing the same old “stay out of dark alleys” trope.
The argument here is over whether offering such blindingly obvious, marginally helpful (at best) and frankly condescending “advice” to people who have heard it a thousand times before is a more effective approach to dealing with the phenomenon of rape than a program to educate the public about what rape really is, about the importance of consent, what constitutes consent, etc. So that when someone does pass out at a party the other people at that party won’t ignore it and think it isn’t really rape when someone rapes them…
So before offering any more opinions or complaining about my rudeness you might be better off taking some time to catch up to where the rest of are in this conversation.
And maybe actually watch that Tfoot video, read the detailed response to it starting here: http://somegreybloke.blogspot.com/2013/09/thunderf00t-has-decided-to-talk-about.html and then decide whether you’ve actually contributed anything of value here.
Let’s try to make the “defensive driving” analogy fit a bit better.
Let us hypothesize that a certain widespread pathology existed among members of the police force; whereby certain officers, upon finding that your driver’s licence number ends in an odd-digit rather than an even-digit, were liable to fall into an irrational fit of rage, drag you from your car, mace you, taze you, beat you, and sometimes even execute you on the spot.
Let us further hypothesize such incidences were frequent enough that any driver who’d been assigned an odd-digit license number stood a 1 in 3 chance of being subjected to such an attack in their lives.
Now, in this scenario, anytime an odd-digit-driver is attacked, beaten, or killed, and the ODI cop is caught, the ODI cop indicates that the driver never would’ve been in any danger at all, if he or she had simply not driven 3 mph over the speed limit. Or not done a rolling stop through a stop sign. Or not looked downward in a way that looked like they were texting. Or not driving a car with a taillight out. Or not driving a car that matched the description of a stolen vehicle.
Now, let’s imagine that in response to this, the police department claims that it is going to address the ODI problem head on. They respond with no changes to police training, to hiring guides, or to public education programs designed to combat ODI. They invest no time or money into building internal programs to teach ODI behavior detection, to ensure direct and immediate ramifications for ODI aggression, to establish clear-cut means for ODI whistleblowers to report potential ODI colleagues, or to subject personnel to anti-ODI seminars.
Instead of doing any of that, the police department say, “Eh, ODI is just something some of our cops have, when they’re convicted of it beyond reasonable doubt, we’ll fire them and put them in jail”. So instead of working to reduce the number of ODI cops, they invest all of their resources into scientifically studying ODI-attacks, and developing and distributing pamphlets to odd-digit drivers with the following guidelines:
In general, minimize how much driving you do.
Don’t drive alone, particularly when driving on roads or during hours where there’s not a lot of traffic (ODI attacks being less frequent when witnesses were around).
NEVER drive at any time during which sobriety checkpoints might be up and running (if you must travel during those hours, find an even-digit driver to drive you around instead).
Whenever you do decide to drive, visually inspect your vehicle and check all signals/lights before every trip; pause every hour of a road-trip to double-check them.
Meticulously review all traffic laws of your community (and, of course, any community through which you’ll be driving), and carefully obey those laws 100% of the time.
Body language counts! Don’t give the appearance of being someone who might be disobeying traffic laws: two hands on the wheel, eyes forward, don’t appear distracted by talking to others in the car; don’t look like you’re taking driving too lightly by smiling or laughing while doing it.
You have exclusive control over what you drive: Red cars “look faster” and are more susceptible to being pulled over, only purchase “safe” colored cars (like green or teal). Kind of a “duh” point that goes without saying: sports cars are best left to the even-digit drivers.
… and about 50 more of these.
Imagine that our culture received this pamphlet with its own weird pathology, causing its members to respond to all reports of ODI attacks by focusing on how closely the odd-digit driver was following these guidelines. Imagine that charges against ODI cops were routinely dismissed in cases where the odd-digit-driver was blatantly violating a traffic law (and in ODI trials, defendants simply present a case showing how many guidelines were being violated by the victim, and in the face of such “negligence”, prosecutors were unable to garner enough jury sympathy to lock in convictions of ODI cops).
As an odd-digit driver, imagine that any time you brought the subject up to an even-digit driver about how we might identify ODI cops and/or reduce the tendency of cops to develop the ODI pathology, those drivers immediately and always changed the subject to focus on how REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT it is to ensure all odd-digit drivers know and follow the safety guidelines, day in and day out, for their entire lives.
No analogy is perfect, but this is the best I can do to link the “defensive driver” analogy to the actual “rape avoidance” situation, that in anyway conveys why so many women (and men) are describing TF’s video (serving as the 12,439th time in a woman’s life where she’s reminded of the second-class-citezenry behavior she can adopt to [MAYBE] avoid being raped) as insipidly asinine privileged bullshit.
… And in re-reading this, it dawns on me just how closely this bizarro-land analogy resembles the world that black drivers actually deal with… so, even if it fails in the respect I’d intended, maybe it will help other white men appreciate just what kinds of privilege we enjoy in our racist society (it definitely has shed a differently light on that for me).
ANNNND my analogy left off the biggest point of all in criticizing TF’s logic: assume that 80% of ODI attacks occur against odd-digit-drivers who are following the guidelines perfectly.
@A Hermit
No, I jumped into a conversation about some topics that were loosely related to the video, sparked by the video if you will. Some asshat decided that “bedrooms” are included in “shady places that you should avoid” (paraphrase). I called that idiotic and dishonest, a strawman. I stand by that. I also stand by my assertion that saying “Oh you either need to agree with me or agree with TF” to be idiotic, dishonest, and dangerous.
So we can agree the advice is good, and we should teach people it who do not already know it? Excellent.
Indeed. I went miles out of my way to write several pages worth of material explicitly making this point. I am in complete agreement.
Finally, the point of contention. No it’s not. No reasonable reading of everything I’ve written here can come to that conclusion. I have written pages clearly describing my position as also needing to change our horrible culture, to make the act of rape (more) despised by more people, and to otherwise make it less common.
What we have here is an over-the-top kneejerk reaction by you and others like you, you are so jaded and so far up your own ass that any sort of civil sane discussion about reasonable defensive practices are thrown in with the MRAs, despite my absurd precautions to the contrary. You have a problem. You and other people are so quick to demonize anyone else who goes against your insane mantra that “it’s never the victim’s fault (which is true) and any and all talking about any and all ways to avoid victimization is necessarily victim blaming (which is obscene)”.
Again, context matters. If a rape just happened, and if I commented on it with only “well, maybe she shouldn’t have passed out at the frat party” then you would have a good point. However, that is not this context, and I did not write just that.
@kevinkirkpatrick
Indeed.
The question is why do you think this is a conversation about “reasonable defensive practices?” I used to teach self defense classes; there is nothing here that I’ve seen that fits that description…certainly not your weak little defensive driving analogy.
The point about “shady areas” including your own bedroom was intended, I believe, to point out that most rapes don’t happen to people walking down dark alleys in strange neighbourhoods, so it’s kind of a trivial, meaningless piece of advice in the big picture.
Wait a minute; if it’s true that it’s never the victim’s fault why is it “an insane mantra” to say so? It’s hard to know where you stand when you switch positions in a single sentence…
And again, you’re missing the point which is that we have all spent enough time talking about ways to avoid victimization; we’re trying to move the conversation past that stuff, so it isn’t helpful to have you trying to drag it back there.
And yes, context matters; the context in this case being an hours long video chat about Tf00t’s awful video which is full of weird useless analogies and victim blaming crap about the kind of clothes women wear and how they aren’t honest enough when flirting with men…(which you haven’t even bothered to watch…)
By the way, can you explain what I’ve done to “demonize” you exactly? I’ve disagreed with you , certainly, but I think you’re being a bit thin skinned there…
good answer.
nothing more need be said in response, really.
I was quite clear. The “insane mantra” precedes a double quoted section of text. This means it applies to the whole of the quoted passage. I even went into further detail with parentheticals inside the quoted passage, one per point, making two parentheticals for the two points. The parentheticals explain that the first point is correct, and that the second point is insane. Together, these two points comprise the whole of the double quoted section of text. One correct point plus one insane point equals one insane double quoted text segment.
In other words:
“It’s never the victims fault” – correct
“Any and all talk of victim avoidance is necessarily rape apologetics” – insane
“It’s never the victims fault” and “Any and all talk of victim avoidance is necessarily rape apologetics” – insane
E.G.: correct + insane = insane
I could not have been more clear.
Really? Not passing out drunk alone amongst strangers at a frat party? That’s not good advice? … Really!?
But anyway, this is a red herring. It’s a moving of the goalposts. You are trying to attack me for being ignorant as to if there are any good methods at victim avoidance to deflection attention from your insane seeming position that any and all talk about victim avoidance no matter the context and clarity is necessary rape apologetics. Even if I cannot name a single good victim avoidance technique offhand does not mean that talking about such things in all ways in all contexts is rape apologetics. It’s simply a non-sequitir.
I do not appreciate this (perhaps unintentional) dishonest tactic.
Wrong. You are basing your rape prevention advice on what you think most rapes are like. You are wrong about that and thus wrong to give your “advice”. Make the facts your friends.
We all know that’s not what was intended…
Ywe, we DO know that — Thunderfart’s “advice” simply isn’t relevant to a huge chunk of actual rape situations. That’s just one reason why he’s so full of shit.
Sorry, I should have said gender identity rather than gender presentation. I meant to fix that.
“What Thunderfoot knows about rape prevention …”
… could be written on the back of a postage stamp.
…In a very large font.
kevinkirkpatrick @ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2013/10/05/what-thunderfoot-knows-about-rape-prevention/#comment-48984
That was brilliant…
Agreed. I might have to steal that analogy for future use.
Please do. After re-reading it, I still really like the spirit of the analogy, but I definitely think it can be narrowed/focused a bit to make three points more clearly:
1) There are two types of rape avoidance advice: common-sense advice and live-like-a-second-class-citizen advice. The former is condescending (akin to telling somebody that if they don’t want to get pulled over by a police officer they should consider obeying traffic laws); the latter Taliban-esque (akin to telling someone that if they don’t want to get pulled over, they ought not drive during hours at which sobriety checks might be running).
2) In addition to being condescending and Taliban-esque, rape-avoidance advice is only applicable to a small fraction of the circumstances in which rape tends to occur, and is thus largely useless to boot.
3) Discussions of rape prevention should be 100% focused on the cultural factors that actually contribute to the prevalence of rape in our society. This includes such topics as addressing the gross ignorance of many adolescents (yes, both male and female) surrounding the entire topic of consent; the under-appreciation for the fundamental human right of bodily autonomy; curtailing the casual dissemination of memes that make light of non-consensual situations (e.g. rape jokes); learning what “rape apologetics” are, how they harm rape victims, and how they can contribute to a culture that empowers rapists; teaching how alcohol can be used as a date rape drug, how to identify rapists who may be attempting to use it as such, and how to establish social norms / safe environments whereby such behavior is readily called out and perpetrators evicted, ostracized, and/or brought to the attention of authorities.
Of key note here for number 3 (and what I hope to drive home with the analogy): the inexplicable drive of many men to derail such rape-prevention conversations with [again, condescending, infantalizing, and mostly useless] rape-avoidance advice IS one of the contributors to the cultural factor of “rape apologetics” that needs to be addressed.
Please take some basic courses in statistics, then get back to me.
Consider: The number of kids each year killed by lightning strikes are quite small. Yet, it is quite serious business for every recreational soccer league to distinguish between mere rain storms and lightning storms. Play continues in the rain, but stops immediately if there is any lightning visible at all or predicted, etc.
Why is the death count of kids by lightning small? Because they follow common sense advice to avoid lightning. Imagine what happened if they didn’t. The number of kids dead by lightning would rise dramatically. What was a rounding error may increase in size to become significant.
Thus, your statistics that most rapes do not happen from passing out alone at a frat party has absolutely no relation to how dangerous that is. It’s exactly the same as the statistics of how likely you are to die by lightning strike on a soccer field has absolutely nothing to do with how dangerous it is to play soccer on an open field in a lightning storm.
Are kids born with this knowledge that it’s very dangerous to play soccer in lightning storms? No. They must be educated. It is not condescending.
Finally, my suggestion to any fellow white person to avoid the east side of Detroit at all costs is not Taliban-esque. That choice of words deliberately provokes an understanding that the advice giver is condoning the behavior of the residents and gangs of east Detroit in harassing, robbing, or shooting white people. I do no such thing when I give that advice. Similarly, LeVar is in no way condoning the shooting of black people by police when he teaches his son some basic safety tips. Yet, by your standards, LeVar’s advice is Taliban-esque.
Thank you for making it so easy on me. Under your intended meaning which means to focus 100% on the potential rapers and 0% on victim avoidance, …
No.
Imagine if I said “no one should ever be taught how to avoid a mugging, or how to handle a mugging, at all, 0%, and instead we should focus all of our efforts at making people less likely to mug”? My example is batshit insane, and your position on rape is also batshit insane.
PS: To be clear, I am not against a majority of the money going to trying to change the culture to make less people try and want to rape. If you can show even a paultry argument that this is the most effective use of time and funds, then I would be for it. However, saying it must necessarily be “100%” is batshit insane, and if such a batshit insane policy were to be pursued, many more women would be harmed than otherwise necessarily, and I will not stand by and let that happen because I am a dedicated humanist and feminist.
Lilandra and Aron; The two of you came across as shallow, repetitive,and either deluded or dishonest.
I am disappointed, you would reject one dogma yet swallow the other?
So, now, “rapists are responsible for rape” is “dogma”. Everyone knows it’s women’s fault, Lilandra & Aron, everyone knows that!
Ah yes. It is dogma. Abear, how did I not see it before?
Meep morp, we are femdroid borgs. Moop.
It’s sad to see the Youtube atheism community fall into disrepair like this,
but who is being unreasonable here? All I know is if Chundershite’s posse
carries the day, I’m never watching a fucking atheist video on youtube again.
–
It’s gobshites like Thunderf00t that sort of where for me the last drop that made me stop giving a shit about atheism as a movement and just moved on to focussing on what I think I should’ve been focussing on anyway; progressivism.
Fact is, atheism I feel at this point has completely and utterly failed as a movement exactly because it strove to be apolitical. By not applying the rational thought applied to religious claims to the rest of life, atheism remained inclusive to people who are utterly and completely irrational in their political and social views. (Including the condescending abuse of the anti-feminists, as well as the economic equivalent of creationism that is American right-wing libertarianism.), fact is, if the atheism movement was a truly rational movement. These people’d have long been ejected and their beliefs shown up to be the ridiculous historically demonstrable nonsense that they are. And if atheism was a truly ETHICAL movement, then regardless of a persons popularity, misconduct would be thoroughly and decisively punished. Neither of which is the case.
Fact is, atheism is utterly worthless as a movement. It’s mostly just a way for white middleclass dudebro’s to pat themselves on the back for supposedly being of superior intelligence by rejecting religion, and that’s all it is, and clearly all it’s gonna be.
I’d say it’s not worth wasting time on. You can fight the abuse religious right as a progressive too, and as a progressive you can do it more effectively anyway. Atheism as a movement has proven itself to be both pointless, and disturbingly irrational.
yup.
I miss the days when I believed we were a mostly rational community, with a few irrational atheists scattered around the place to remind us that a rational path to your answer is more important than getting the right answer. I know – and knew – that we’re all human, and that, as such, we’re all going to deal with irrationality on some level, but come on! We were the skeptics! We thought things through, verified and checked everything we accepted as true.
Nope.
All this anti-woman nonsense terrifies me. If the likes of thunderf00t (he is a skeptic, isn’t he?!) can fall prey to this kind of irrationality, what irrational timebomb is waiting to throw me into the pits of irrationality?
Hopefully it was just my belief that the majority of the atheist movement was rational, but what if it’s something else? Something important? Will I be as blind to my irrationality as they are? Will I be able to spit out contradictory statements in the same sentence, and see no flaw in them merely because they support the irrationality I embrace?
I know skeptical thought isn’t easy, but it is possible to keep it up, right? I really don’t want to fall into those same traps.