Misogyny, rape culture, racism in relation to journalism, media, and Reddit

[Marc v4.0]

You really, really need to work on your wording, then. A suggestion for next time would be to actually mention a concern for the women being slut shamed, instead of dropping things about hot media coverage and a concern of copy-cats. Neither of which has anything to do with the women being mistreated by the media and implies you are talking about people openly offending to seek attention.

I am very glad to see that you didn't suddenly go completel insane, I was worried and Internet Mad for a moment there

[POS Industries]

I, too, am glad that Loyal meant something totally different than what it looked like he was saying.

Because what it looked like was pretty monstrous.

EDIT: I've got something "useful" to add.

In the grand scope of things, I don't think it's even necessarily a thing to be that concerned over--not to say that you shouldn't--because we do have confidentiality protections in place for victims of sexual crimes. There is a risk of the victims being further victimized by people loyal to the cause of being gigantic assholes, but the fact is that doing nothing doesn't stop the violation of their rights, since the photos continue on being distributed. Lawsuits can't stop it, either, but at the very least they can get the recompense they deserve under the law for it and set a standard for people who wish to follow in VA's footsteps. It's a hard road and I can understand if they aren't willing to do it, but I'd still encourage them to go through with it if for no other reason than to get some amount of closure.

And, frankly, I will stand by my "what" reaction if anyone suggests they should do otherwise. I think it's all the respect anyone who makes that case deserves.

[pochercoaster]

Originally Posted by shiney

See, that's a big stretch if you ask me though. Them not calling him a rapist doesn't mean they are covering for him as a rapist. Rape culture is surely a thing that exists but that is a very large leap of assumption to make, to say that the only reason they didn't call him a rapist is because of rape defense.

I'm not calling him a rapist right now because I haven't been able to weigh the facts of what happened, just that I know he was visited by cops because of stuff he said on the internet. Am I defending rape now?

Maybe the cops went and found she was 18+ the whole time, or it was consensual, or nothing at all happened and he was bloviating. It's every single bit as likely as that he raped her. I'm not going to place my reputation on the line to call him out as a rapist based strictly on hearsay and then have the official police report come and make me look like an idiot.

Being 18+ doesn't put you in a default state of constant consent (I understand that this wasn't your intention and it was just a badly worded sentence, but I'd like to use it as a jumping point). The only thing that makes sex consensual, is consent, which is why the "or it was consensual" part of the sentence stuck out to me. It's not an either/or question. In the AMA VA said his stepdaughter was 19 years old but he didn't specify if she was 19 at the time of the assault or in present time. But her age ultimately is irrelevant because from every possible angle nothing about this looks consensual. I actually specifically didn't mention that she was 19 from the outset of the previous thread because I anticipated that someone might say "well, since she's the age of consent she probably found her pervy stepfather irresistible." And I'm really not prepared for that headache.

So let's talk about definitions of consent. Let's talk about how hard it is to actually prove that an assault/rape was non-consensual, and how it's wrong that by default we assume victims are lying. Let's talk about how the law's definition of rape and consent are deeply flawed and more often than not defined by rapists themselves, and therefore fail rape victims.

This is gonna be a bit rambly but there's a bunch of points I want to touch on. First of all: what is consent?

I came across a very simple and effective metaphor for consent isn't awhile ago: consent is not a lightswitch.

See, contrary to what seems like popular belief, sexual consent isn’t like a lightswitch, which can be either "on," or "off." It’s not like there’s this one thing called "sex" you can consent to anyhow. "Sex" is an evolving series of actions and interactions. You have to have the enthusiastic consent of your partner for all of them. And even if you have your partner’s consent for a particular activity, you have to be prepared for it to change.

See, consent isn’t a question. It’s a state. If, instead of lovers, the two of you were synchronized swimmers, consent would be the water. It’s not enough to jump in, get wet and climb out — if you want to swim, you have to be in the water continually. And if you want to have sex, you have to be continually in a state of enthusiastic consent with your partner.

[...]

Back to the case at hand. It’s hardly confusing. She said "yes" to one act (the asphyxiation which rendered her unconscious). She never said yes to the anal penetration. The only world in which this case is a question of "advance" consent is one in which we’re still thinking of consent as a lightswitch. As a single question with only two possible answers and no takebacks. Sex? Yes/No? She said yes to a sex act (a kinky one at that, so she’s probably that kind of woman, wink wink, nudge nudge, rape apology rape apology), and therefore she said yes to ALL sex acts. (And don’t forget, no takebacks!)

Do I really have to break down the levels on which this model of consent fails? I guess I do. Let’s start with "no takebacks." There are a million reasons someone might say yes to a sexual activity and then later withdraw consent. Some of them are uncomfortable to think about (maybe your partner says or does something that makes you feel suddenly unsafe), but some of them are pretty mundane. Maybe your leg cramps. Maybe you’re getting sore. Maybe you thought it would be hot but now that you’re doing it (whatever "it" is) you realize you’re not into it, or you’re just no longer in the mood. Maybe IT DOESN’T MATTER WHY. If you no longer want to be doing something sexual with another person, and you let them know that, and they don’t stop? That’s sexual assault. Period.

But that’s not even what happened in this case, because she. never. consented. Not to anal penetration. How is that hard to understand? How does "yes, let’s try some breath play" somehow sound like "yes, please shove a dildo into my anus"? Only in a world in which both of those sentences sound like "Yes to sex. Kinky sex! All of it! Woo!" And that’s exactly the problem with the lightswitch model of consent. It makes sex into a yes-or-no question, the same way it separates women into sluts and prudes. And if you’re a slut, if you say yes to sex, you say yes to all sex, whenever, however, and if you don’t like it, well, tough — you should’ve thought of that before you said yes. In other words? The lightswitch model of sex is one of the main pillars holding up the entire rape culture.

Yes, "everyone" "knows" that consent isn't a lightswitch, but... In light of how many people rape/are raped, and perhaps more importantly in light of how many people excuse rape and disbelieve rape victims, how many people do know what consent actually is?

Why is this relevant? Well, cause a hell of a lot times the media covers sexual assaults they are quick to point out that the victim was out on a date with the rapist and clearly enjoying their company, such as here. And if they were on a date she must've consented to every other activity that occurred on that date or in the previous 48 hours! </sarcasm> They might even note that they "aren't acting like rape victims." They fail to note that is completely plausible- common, even- for victims to excuse the rapist because 1. the victim might be scared of provoking their attacker 2. the victim has been socialized to believe it is their fault and try to convince themselves they weren't raped and 3. the victim knows it is unlikely anyone will believe them.

Sidenote: I had a relatively comprehensive sex education in elementary and high school. Various forms of birth control methods were discussed along with accurate statistics about their failure rates. Sexuality was not talked about a whole lot but I do think there was some "it's okay/normal to be gay" stuff in there. This seems like a lot more comprehensive than many other sex ed classes, which is rather sad because it was still incredibly lacking. But where the hell were the discussions of consent? Okay, actually, my class did briefly cover consent, with "yes means yes, no means no" rhetoric. And that's where it stopped. Why is this a problem? Well...

“Yes means yes, no means no
However we dress, wherever we go”

[...]

The basic implication behind that slogan, is that women are being posed the question, which they then answer or not - with yes or no. Men ask “do you want sex?” and women say “yes please” or “no thank you”.

[...]

The mindless latching on to the slogan by the media, is not a positive thing for the understanding of sexual dynamics between men and women. Firstly, the premise that the man asks the question and the woman answers, taps into the age-old idiotic idea that men’s sexuality is active and women’s is passive - we wait to be asked the question. Secondly, the media have completely dropped the first bit of the slogan: “yes means yes”. The absence of “no” does not equate to the presence of “yes”. When women do not say no, that does not mean they are saying yes and the absence of yes, is as much lack of consent as the presence of no. It is also more common than the presence of no, which is why the media do not want to engage with it.

For many people, “no means no” has come to mean that a woman has to say “No!” loudly and clearly, before a man penetrating her body when she doesn’t want him to, can rightfully be called rape.

And there’s a problem with that. A big one. Women are socialised not to say no, ever. Actually, men are socialised not to say no as well, just not as strongly as women are. All of us use hedging language when people ask us to do things we don’t want to do. If you don’t believe me, try saying just “No” next time a colleagues asks you if you fancy going for a coffee or if you have time to look at something s/he’s working on. You won’t be able to do it. You’ll say “I’d love to, but …” or “I don’t have time just now, but…” etc. If you do manage to get the big, bald “No” out there, your colleague will think you are incredibly rude and aggressive - and you will feel incredibly rude and aggressive.

Also, women are socialised to accept the boundaries that they put down, being over-ridden. Men constantly interrupt us, talk over us, ignore what we’ve said, ignore the signals we send out to them. We’re used to it. So we have learned that saying “No” isn’t actually an effective means of getting men to take notice of what we want. Saying no, just offends men and sounds like a challenge, not a boundary-setting, so it may well be quite a dangerous thing to say in a tense situation where somebody who has probably already broken lots of other boundaries to get to that point, wants to do something the smaller, physically weaker person doesn’t want them to.

[...]

How much more likely is it that women, who have been taught that setting clear verbal boundaries is aggressive and rude, will come out with a massive No when they are in a vulnerable situation with a man who they are not sure is going to respect that No? If even men can’t bring themselves to do that, when they are in no danger of violence, when they are bigger and stronger than the woman who wants to have sex with them, when they have been taught that they have the right to have their boundaries respected, why on earth do we all expect women to do it and why do we pretend that if they haven’t done it, then it’s not really rape?

Because here’s another thing that research shows. It shows that men are perfectly capable of understanding every single non-verbal cue a woman gives about her willingness or otherwise, to have sex. Normal men don’t need to be told “No” to understand that they don’t have the right to penetrate a woman’s body. They know that the absence of no, isn’t the same as the presence of yes. They know that unless a woman is actively showing you she wants you inside her, then you shouldn’t, um, get inside her. The least you should do, is check she wants you there. How difficult is it to ask “OK?”

And yet the whole of public discourse on this subject, assumes that there is absolutely no onus on men whatsoever, to ensure that the woman whose body they are about to enter, welcomes that entry. The whole of public discourse talks about the need women have, to ensure that they tell men they are unwelcome and never talks about the need men have, to ensure they are actually welcome.

The problem with that, is that if you tell someone who is bigger and stronger than you, who may already have ignored other boundaries, that he is unwelcome in your body, then you are placing him in a position, where both of you know, that what he is doing is categorically rape and that is a serious crime. And if a man knows that he has been recognised as a rapist, if he is so ruthless that he is prepared to enter the body of another human being when he knows s/he doesn’t want him to, then what other violence is he capable of? How many women are going to risk bringing this out into the open and maybe upping the ante and suffering worse violence than rape at the hands of this man?

Not many. And that’s why “No means no” is a bit of a problem. Yes, no means no, but allowing the public discourse to be about women’s “no” instead of men’s duty of care to ensure “yes”, reinforces the idea that men have the right to penetrate women unless women actively stop them from doing so, instead of needing to ensure that women actively invite them to do so. It reinforces the idea that the onus is on women not to get raped, rather than on men not to rape.

Who benefits from this framing of the public discourse?

Rapists of course.

So every time someone asks “Did she say no?” about a rape victim, they are unintentionally (or not) supporting the status quo which makes it so easy for rapists to rape women and get away with it. If you don't want to be part of the problem, don't ask if a rape victim said no - ask if she said yes. Ask if she invited him in. The very least a normal man expects to hear from a woman is not silence, which he can pretend is acquiescence, it is “yes”, or "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes..."

Any man who says that a woman not saying no, is by definition one who has consented, is a man to avoid in my book.

Okay, so now that I've illustrated the contrast between a healthy and unhealthy model of consent, let's see how this applies in the real world, when two weeks ago a court ruled that a severely disabled woman wasn't raped because she didn't 'bite, kick or scratch' her assailant.

In a 4-3 ruling Tuesday afternoon, the Connecticut State Supreme Court overturned the sexual assault conviction of a man who had sex with a woman who “has severe cerebral palsy, has the intellectual functional equivalent of a 3-year-old and cannot verbally communicate.” The Court held that, because Connecticut statutes define physical incapacity for the purpose of sexual assault as “unconscious or for any other reason. . . physically unable to communicate unwillingness to an act,” the defendant could not be convicted if there was any chance that the victim could have communicated her lack of consent. Since the victim in this case was capable of “biting, kicking, scratching, screeching, groaning or gesturing,” the Court ruled that that victim could have communicated lack of consent despite her serious mental deficiencies:

According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), lack of physical resistance is not evidence of consent , as “many victims make the good judgment that physical resistance would cause the attacker to become more violent.” RAINN also notes that lack of consent is implicit “if you were under the statutory age of consent, or if you had a mental defect” as the victim did in this case.

Anna Doroghazi, director of public policy and communication at Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services, worried that the Court’s interpretation of the law ignored these concerns: “By implying that the victim in this case should have bitten or kicked her assailant, this ruling effectively holds people with disabilities to a higher standard than the rest of the population when it comes to proving lack of consent in sexual assault cases. Failing to bite an assailant is not the same thing as consenting to sexual activity.” An amicus brief filed by the Connecticut advocates for disabled persons argued that this higher standard “discourag[ed] the prosecution of crimes against persons with disabilities” even though “persons with a disability had an age-adjusted rate of rape or sexual assault that was more than twice the rate for persons without a disability.”

(I also want to note that VA's wife is disabled. I'm not going to make any assumptions beyond that.)

***There are still a bunch of things I want to write about but I have to be somewhere right now, so I'll just leave this here and touch on the other topics later.***

[shiney]

A missive directed at rape-supporting politicians. WARNING: CAN BE TRIGGER-Y

I wanted to share this as I just read it. I think it's entirely relevant both to rape culture and to the abortion topic that is dominating discourse as asinine republicans try to get their followers to the polls.

Edit: The author, John Scalzi, you may recognize from science fiction and poltiical commentary. The comments threads on his site are something he watches, manages and prunes with alarming clarity. In this thread, he is ensuring the discussion remains on topic: Who has the rights to control a woman's body, the woman or her rapist? Many keep trying to drag it off-topic into a more general discussion about abortion and the rights of the infant, and he is not allowing this, instead keeping the topic, well, on-topic.

The thread itself, from what I am seeing in the comments, is also very trigger-inducing. So, be cautious.

[shiney]

Here's another interesting piece, written to Mr. Mourdock by a survivor of rape. This one pretty much directly calls him out on blaming the victim and making life harder for rape survivors.

Seems to be getting picked up more and more. This is a good thing...

[pochercoaster]

So reddit continues to be shitty by sexually harassing 15 year old girls, no one is surprised! Actually, this post is quite old. Surprise, VA is not an anomaly when it comes to sexually harassing behaviour.

And here is a story about a student-run "fantasy slut league," where male students try to earn points by engaging in sexual behaviour with female students!

PIEDMONT, Calif. (KGO) -- An alert by the principal of Piedmont High School has raised concerns among parents. In a letter sent last week, the principal says his staff discovered a so-called "fantasy slut league" among students.

In the letter, Principal Rich Kitchens describes "a 'Fantasy Slut League' in which our female students (unbeknownst to most of them) are drafted as part of the league...Male students earn points for documented engagement in sexual activities with female students."

According to the letter, school staff learned about this during a recent assembly about date rape prevention.

An investigation was launched on campus and they learned this has been going on for five to six years.

The principal wrote, "Participation often involved pressure/manipulation by older students that included alcohol to impair judgment/control and social demands to be popular."

ABC7 News spoke with Superintendent Constance Hubbard about the letter.

"We wanted to make sure that parents were aware of things that were going in their kids' lives," Hubbard said.

Many parents said they were surprised to hear about the "fantasy slut league," but most didn't want to talk about it. They said Piedmont is a small town, and that is a very sensitive subject.

"I'm really glad that there's a strong administration that's willing to take on these kinds of issues; as a mother of four girls I couldn't be happier," parent Bianca Forrester said.

Piedmont school administrators say they issued the letter in an effort to be proactive.

"The main thing is that I don't want to blow this out of proportion; I don't want to make is something that is some horrible big event that we found out about," Hubbard said.

They are planning a series of on campus assemblies with lessons about preventing this in the future.

Source 2.

Piedmont High School officials are currently investing a controversial organization started by the male varsity sports teams – the "fantasy slut league."

The school's been investigating the fantasy league and the school principal recently sent a letter home to students and parents alerting them to the existence of the group.

"Over the past five to six years such a league has existed in one form or another as part of bonding for some varsity teams during their seasons of sport," the letter said.

The league consisted of female students being drafted and then male students would then earn points for documented sexual activities with the female students.

Most people in Piedmont wouldn't comment on the issue, but those who did said they are disappointed.

"The title alone to me is just very demeaning," said Geri Ferrer-Chan, of Piedmont High School.

Carolyn Ballis of Emeryville said hearing about this was a surprise. "But it happens a lot more that you'd like to think it does," she said.

The principal also said in the letter: "Students felt pressure to participate and or lacked confidence to overtly stop it."

In some cases, alcohol was involved, the letter said.

The principal released a statement Sunday day where he said, "The letter speaks for itself in that this is a matter of school and family working together to support our teens to make good choices and to treat each other with respect and dignity."

The school's principal also stated in the letter that there will be an assembly to address the issues; however, since the incidents appeared to happen off of school grounds no disciplinary action will be taken.

But it's not like sexualized aggression is socialized into people or anything!