Rape culture: British Style

[prideandfall]

Yet still the argument continues which leads me to ask both sides, why?

because telling someone with the will and the desire to rape someone "oh hey, don't rape someone" is probably going to accomplish fuck-all.
however, telling someone who is optionally putting themselves into a context that is a known and quantifiable situation with a heightened risk of being raped "oh hey, don't put yourself in that position" might possibly accomplish less women doing that.

fundamentally it's about which party that is participating in a danger-enhancing situation is more likely to change their behavior.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Yet still the argument continues which leads me to ask both sides, why?

because telling someone with the will and the desire to rape someone "oh hey, don't rape someone" is probably going to accomplish fuck-all.
however, telling someone who is optionally putting themselves into a context that is a known and quantifiable situation with a heightened risk of being raped "oh hey, don't put yourself in that position" might possibly accomplish less women doing that.

fundamentally it's about which party that is participating in a danger-enhancing situation is more likely to change their behavior.

but if you put up both posters you are getting your message out.

So again why?

 

[Bronzeage]

1. why on earth would you say that, considering that it is your position (and not mine) that states any time your feet are wet, it's because you're standing in water?

Some rape is not about sex, in the way most of us understand and enjoy sex.

true, but that doesn't mean it isn't about sex in a way most of you don't understand or enjoy.
that's doesn't make it not about sex.

If there truly were such an impulse, no social conditioning could restrain it.

2. patently and observably false.
as animals, we have myriad impulses to do things which we have selectively conditioned out of our behavioral responses, to the point where in many cases we will bypass instinct entirely and literally kill ourselves rather than violate that conditioning.

This discussion is not about irresistible overwhelming impulses to insure one's genetic code is transmitted to a new generation.

3. i don't believe anyone ever said it was.

It is more about social conditioning, specifically the social conditioning which leads some men to believe they are entitled to sex with any woman whose resistance is impaired.

i completely disagree with the entirety of your premise here - keeping in mind that we're all just animals, like any other animal, biologically speaking there is no 'entitlement' to sex anymore then there is an 'entitlement' to not-sex, everything comes down to brute force and then gets mitigated by social custom (ie: mating rituals) from there.
biologically speaking, the impetus to have sex doesn't give a shit about consent, any more than the impetus to eat food gives a shit about whether or not the bread belongs to you or if you've paid for it.
we socially condition our species to resist the biological impetus to act on those impulses regardless of the consequence, so i think that what you consider a socially conditioned sense of entitlement to sex i consider a lack of social conditioning to resist to impulse for sex regardless of consent.

The man who takes advantage of impaired resistance doesn't see himself as a rapist. After all, she never said "No," or at least not enough times. Her problem is "morning regret," or, "changed her mind."

there's also a pretty big question of what exactly constitutes 'takes advantage of', because while a sober man assaulting a drunk woman is clearly sexual assault, i question whether a man too drunk to legally give consent having sex with a woman too drunk to legally give consent is in fact a rapist, or at least is a rapist any more than the woman is also a rapist.

This man does not have the social conditioning to understand that having sex with a woman who is unable to resist and will regret having sex with him is rape and he is a rapist. It's an ugly fact, but that's the truth.

i don't disagree with this statement, though i'd bet that it's for different reasons than you.

Point by point quote break ups are a pain in the ass.
1. I said damp socks. I did not specify the liquid which dampened them.
2. Patently and observably true. We may take foolish risks for sex, but if our species copulated once and then died, most of us would still be virgins.
3. I just made the statement, so someone has said it.

i completely disagree with the entirety of your premise here - keeping in mind that we're all just animals, like any other animal, biologically speaking there is no 'entitlement' to sex anymore then there is an 'entitlement' to not-sex, everything comes down to brute force and then gets mitigated by social custom (ie: mating rituals) from there.
biologically speaking, the impetus to have sex doesn't give a shit about consent, any more than the impetus to eat food gives a shit about whether or not the bread belongs to you or if you've paid for it.
we socially condition our species to resist the biological impetus to act on those impulses regardless of the consequence, so i think that what you consider a socially conditioned sense of entitlement to sex i consider a lack of social conditioning to resist to impulse for sex regardless of consent.

Nice try, but our big human brain comes with optional equipment which means we are not "like any other animal." We are a similar to a few animals, but the thing about the "impetus to have sex doesn't give a shit about consent" is an adolescent fantasy.

If a woman decides to pull a man's pants down and ram a dildo up his ass for her amusement and he is too drunk to consider whether or not he is not interested in the experience, then he is fully entitled to claim he has been raped, and with good reason. When a man is too drunk to understand he should not drive a car, we don't give him special consideration for being too drunk to know better.

 

[prideandfall]

but if you put up both posters you are getting your message out.

So again why?

well, it's not like i put the posters up so i couldn't begin to explain the motivations of the people that did, i just offered what seemed the most rational explanation for the question you were asking.

might as well ask why they don't have posters up that say "don't murder people" or "don't steal cars" or "don't steal bikes" or "don't steal laptops", instead of putting up posters saying "lock your doors and windows and don't leave personal items unattended"

 

[prideandfall]

1. I said damp socks. I did not specify the liquid which dampened them.

heh, fair enough.

2. Patently and observably true. We may take foolish risks for sex, but if our species copulated once and then died, most of us would still be virgins.

your statement was that a sufficiently powerful biological impulse (in this particular case, the male imperative to have sex) could not be constrained by social conditioning - this is absolutely a false statement.
impulses even more powerful than sex (such as starvation or self preservation) can be constrained or overwritten entirely by social conditioning.

a person starving to death could be standing next to a pile of food, and not touch it if they've been conditioned to consider that to be stealing. a person being threatened with death can stand there and let themselves be murdered rather than retaliate if sufficiently conditioned against physical force towards others.
have you ever been so angry you wanted to hit something? that's instinct converting rage into action - that is a biological imperative to do bodily harm to something once the correct physiological conditions have been triggered.
most people are conditioned well enough to keep a lid on that and not to act on those impulses, and some people aren't and they act on those impulses any time they have them.
likewise, most people are conditioned well enough to keep a lid on it and not act on those impulses for sex, and some people aren't and they act on those impulses any time they have them.

3. I just made the statement, so someone has said it.

okay, well then... i have no idea what you're talking about, because i never suggested that and it seems completely out of the blue.

Nice try, but our big human brain comes with optional equipment which means we are not "like any other animal." We are a similar to a few animals, but the thing about the "impetus to have sex doesn't give a shit about consent" is an adolescent fantasy.

i think you're rather stupendously and absolutely without merit or justification foisting on humans the idea of being a hell of a lot more separate than they actually are from their biological history.
our big brains don't automatically impart some magical humanist moral compass that everyone follows by way of natural behavior, it just gives most of us an intellectual stop-gap sufficient to decide to not follow certain instincts that have been deemed socially inappropriate.

If a woman decides to pull a man's pants down and ram a dildo up his ass for her amusement and he is too drunk to consider whether or not he is not interested in the experience, then he is fully entitled to claim he has been raped, and with good reason. When a man is too drunk to understand he should not drive a car, we don't give him special consideration for being too drunk to know better.

while i agree with your general premise and i don't want to foster a total derail about the hypocrisy of your position that "too drunk to consent" only counts for women, i will say that one very big difference is that neither ramming dildos up asses nor driving cars are fundamental, inherent, and necessary functions of all biological life on this planet - whereas sexual reproduction is a fundamental, inherent, and necessary function for almost all biological life on this planet.
this is not an excuse for any unacceptable behavior, it's simply to point that a male in a state of complete intellectual inhibition is still compelled by basic biological instinct to have sex.
completely strip all higher order brain functions from a human male (which for the sake of this discussion let's say alcohol does an appreciable job of attempting to do that) and they're still going to breathe, regulate heart beating and body temperature, expel wastes from the body, and attempt to procreate.

while true that it's not required for autonomous cohesion and sustained bodily function, the impulse to fuck something is as deeply rooted in the male physiology as near any other biological action.
the impulse to drive or to ram dildos in people are not something deeply rooted in male or female physiology, so i don't think that the comparison is apt.

 

[Bronzeage]

heh, fair enough.

2. Patently and observably true. We may take foolish risks for sex, but if our species copulated once and then died, most of us would still be virgins.

your statement was that a sufficiently powerful biological impulse (in this particular case, the male imperative to have sex) could not be constrained by social conditioning - this is absolutely a false statement.
impulses even more powerful than sex (such as starvation or self preservation) can be constrained or overwritten entirely by social conditioning.

a person starving to death could be standing next to a pile of food, and not touch it if they've been conditioned to consider that to be stealing. a person being threatened with death can stand there and let themselves be murdered rather than retaliate if sufficiently conditioned against physical force towards others.
have you ever been so angry you wanted to hit something? that's instinct converting rage into action - that is a biological imperative to do bodily harm to something once the correct physiological conditions have been triggered.
most people are conditioned well enough to keep a lid on that and not to act on those impulses, and some people aren't and they act on those impulses any time they have them.
likewise, most people are conditioned well enough to keep a lid on it and not act on those impulses for sex, and some people aren't and they act on those impulses any time they have them.

3. I just made the statement, so someone has said it.

okay, well then... i have no idea what you're talking about, because i never suggested that and it seems completely out of the blue.

Nice try, but our big human brain comes with optional equipment which means we are not "like any other animal." We are a similar to a few animals, but the thing about the "impetus to have sex doesn't give a shit about consent" is an adolescent fantasy.

i think you're rather stupendously and absolutely without merit or justification foisting on humans the idea of being a hell of a lot more separate than they actually are from their biological history.
our big brains don't automatically impart some magical humanist moral compass that everyone follows by way of natural behavior, it just gives most of us an intellectual stop-gap sufficient to decide to not follow certain instincts that have been deemed socially inappropriate.

If a woman decides to pull a man's pants down and ram a dildo up his ass for her amusement and he is too drunk to consider whether or not he is not interested in the experience, then he is fully entitled to claim he has been raped, and with good reason. When a man is too drunk to understand he should not drive a car, we don't give him special consideration for being too drunk to know better.

while i agree with your general premise and i don't want to foster a total derail about the hypocrisy of your position that "too drunk to consent" only counts for women, i will say that one very big difference is that neither ramming dildos up asses nor driving cars are fundamental, inherent, and necessary functions of all biological life on this planet - whereas sexual reproduction is a fundamental, inherent, and necessary function for almost all biological life on this planet.

Your conclusion fails when you try to lump human sexuality into the general category of all sexual organisms on the planet. Sexual reproduction maybe "fundamental, inherent, and necessary function for almost all biological life on this planet, but this does not mean humans share their sexality with all of the animal kingdom.

 

[prideandfall]

Your conclusion fails when you try to lump human sexuality into the general category of all sexual organisms on the planet. Sexual reproduction maybe "fundamental, inherent, and necessary function for almost all biological life on this planet, but this does not mean humans share their sexality with all of the animal kingdom.

yes, they do - and this attempt at inducing magical thinking to try and wand-wave away that fact is the exact sort of absurdity that has lead to the false and ridiculous claim that 'rape isn't about sex' in the first place.

the only difference between human sexuality and the sexuality of every other thing on the planet is that we have a fair spot more, and more complicated, mating rituals than most other species and that we like to get our self-aware intellectual consciousness wrapped up in it, like we do with everything.
take a potato and stick 20 flag pins on it, and you still have an edible potato... it's just an edible potato covered in some mitigating bullshit, it doesn't magically stop being edible, or a potato.

 

[Rhea]

this attempt at inducing magical thinking to try and wand-wave away that fact is the exact sort of absurdity that has lead to the false and ridiculous claim that 'rape isn't about sex' in the first place.

How is it that so many human men are NOT rapists, if this premise is so universal?

 

[prideandfall]

this attempt at inducing magical thinking to try and wand-wave away that fact is the exact sort of absurdity that has lead to the false and ridiculous claim that 'rape isn't about sex' in the first place.

How is it that so many human men are NOT rapists, if this premise is so universal?

for the same reason that so many humans are not murderers, or thieves, or constantly getting pregnant and having babies every time it's physically possible - because humans have a metric fuckton of impulses that we actively suppress all the time because we have collectively socially conditioned ourselves to do so.

when you feel the need to defecate, do you instantly just relax your anal muscles and blow shit out of your ass wherever you stand?
why aren't humans just blasting ass everywhere all the time?
because humans suppress biological impulses all the time.

 

[prideandfall]

Thanks. That totally explains the rapist who breaks into a house and rapes the 80 year old man and wife.

I never really understood that before.

... what?

i'm not seeing how your sarcasm is derived from what you're mocking.
what does age or gender have to do with it?

 

[Bronzeage]

Your conclusion fails when you try to lump human sexuality into the general category of all sexual organisms on the planet. Sexual reproduction maybe "fundamental, inherent, and necessary function for almost all biological life on this planet, but this does not mean humans share their sexality with all of the animal kingdom.

yes, they do - and this attempt at inducing magical thinking to try and wand-wave away that fact is the exact sort of absurdity that has lead to the false and ridiculous claim that 'rape isn't about sex' in the first place.

the only difference between human sexuality and the sexuality of every other thing on the planet is that we have a fair spot more, and more complicated, mating rituals than most other species and that we like to get our self-aware intellectual consciousness wrapped up in it, like we do with everything.
take a potato and stick 20 flag pins on it, and you still have an edible potato... it's just an edible potato covered in some mitigating bullshit, it doesn't magically stop being edible, or a potato.

This is a grave over simplification and the slightest observation of human society exposes the flaws in your premise.

 

[prideandfall]

This is a grave over simplification and the slightest observation of human society exposes the flaws in your premise.

not to derail this thread further, but i'm interested... such as?

not including mating rituals*, which i've already said are absolutely more plentiful and more complicated, what aspects of human sexuality are any different? i'm not asking that to argue with you against it, just because i can't conceive of a single thing you could point to, so i'm curious.

*i consider the following to fall under the umbrella of "mating ritual" in this context:
flirting, marriage and anything and everything related to marriage (including but not limited to: child custody, life-long monogamy in a species not naturally inclined towards it, genital mutilation, the idea of the virtue of virgins), sexual prudishness, slut-shaming, the edification of male sexual prowess, and sexual stimulation or gratification by way of non-sexual stimuli (ie, BDSM, erotic asphyxiation, 'kink' of basically every type in existence.)

 

[AthenaAwakened]

but if you put up both posters you are getting your message out.

So again why?

well, it's not like i put the posters up so i couldn't begin to explain the motivations of the people that did, i just offered what seemed the most rational explanation for the question you were asking.

might as well ask why they don't have posters up that say "don't murder people" or "don't steal cars" or "don't steal bikes" or "don't steal laptops", instead of putting up posters saying "lock your doors and windows and don't leave personal items unattended"

actually, there are signs up like that.


Don't drink and drive
No tresspassing
Don't shoplift
Don't smoke dope.

There are signs, programs, and a shit ton of laws all saying don't.

And then there is the little fact that the "don't be that guy" campaign had an effect on the number sex assault cases, a ten percent effect.

Again, why?

the op poster and the don't be that guy poster side by side

Or do you don't something inherently wrong about the "don't be that guy" campaign?

 

[prideandfall]

Or do you don't something inherently wrong about the "don't be that guy" campaign?

... there's absolutely no call to start ascribing motivations to me personally or accusing me of being counter to your opinion simply because i took a moment to offer a guess as to a possible viable answer to a question that you asked which nobody else had answered.

 

[Bronzeage]

This is a grave over simplification and the slightest observation of human society exposes the flaws in your premise.

not to derail this thread further, but i'm interested... such as?

not including mating rituals, which i've already said are absolutely more plentiful and more complicated, what aspects of human sexuality are any different? i'm not asking that to argue with you against it, just because i can't conceive of a single thing you could point to, so i'm curious.

I would love to hear about the human mating rituals and how they compare to the animal kingdom.

 

[prideandfall]

actually, there are signs up like that.

and the examples you picked are really kinda proving my point here...

Don't drink and drive

think we've been over this already.

No tresspassing

isn't that really more of an advisement though? i never really got the idea that people tresspassing was itself an epidemic, and that those signs were more "hey, FYI, being on this property is tresspassing"

Don't shoplift

conceded.

Don't smoke dope.

but not "don't sell dope", which in this case i think is really the best direct comparison.

- - - Updated - - -

I would love to hear about the human mating rituals and how they compare to the animal kingdom.

i actually edited my post to include a short list of major things that i could think of off the top of my head that i put into that category.

*edit to add*
wow, weird - i keep replying to bronze's post individually, and it keeps tacking it on as an update to this post.
how utterly bizarre.

 

[Bronzeage]

I would love to hear about the human mating rituals and how they compare to the animal kingdom.

i actually edited my post to include a short list of major things that i could think of off the top of my head that i put into that category.

*edit to add*
wow, weird - i keep replying to bronze's post individually, and it keeps tacking it on as an update to this post.
how utterly bizarre.

flirting, marriage and anything and everything related to marriage (including but not limited to: child custody, life-long monogamy in a species not naturally inclined towards it, genital mutilation, the idea of the virtue of virgins), sexual prudishness, slut-shaming, the edification of male sexual prowess, and sexual stimulation or gratification by way of non-sexual stimuli (ie, BDSM, erotic asphyxiation, 'kink' of basically every type in existence.)

None of these things are rituals.

Ritual: a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Or do you don't something inherently wrong about the "don't be that guy" campaign?

... there's absolutely no call to start ascribing motivations to me personally or accusing me of being counter to your opinion simply because i took a moment to offer a guess as to a possible viable answer to a question that you asked which nobody else had answered.

I am not ascribing anything to you, I am asking you a question.

If you think the campaign is a waste of money
If you find it to be ineffectual, or worse, something that makes light of a serious crime,
Those are all legitimate objections to the campaign that don't make you a bad person.

Let me put it to you like this.

The Radio Experiment

A young woman is at a crowded beach. She finds a spot. Puts down her blanket, her sun tan oil, her book and her radio. She then goes to buy an orange soda. Once she is out of sight, a man comes up, picks up the radio and walks off. No one around the woman's blanket says a word.

Later, and further down the beach this same young woman puts down her blanket, her stuff, goes to buy a soda, but this time she asks one person nearby to watch her stuff. She goes to buy her orange soda and sure enough the same guy comes up and picks up the radio. Not only does the person asked to watch the girl's stuff speak up and tell the man to put the radio back, most of the people near the blanket speak up.

The difference between the two groups, the second group got a reminder. Not that they should watch a radio, but that they were good people worthy of trust. So when the guy came to "steal" the radio, the people who were aware that they were trusted, did the right thing, even the ones who weren't asked but had heard the request.

Alain du Botton (sp?) the philiospher (and devout atheist) explains why religions expect congregants to pray on a regular basis. It is because churches know that we are forgetful and left without constant reminders (daily prayer, weekly sermons, regular bible readings, etc.), we tend to forget, to have lapses in judgment, to be lazy and "fall in the way of temptation."

Those "Drive offs will be prosecuted" signs at the gas pumps aren't there for Bonnie and Clyde, but for good people who might be a little short in the wallet and having a really bad day.

"Don't be that guy" posters are just a reminder that your buddies' advice or your own alcohol clouded judgment may not be the best things to rely on and yes this unattractive picture with those bad guys doing bad things, that's how you would look if you did that.

Don't be that guy.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Don't shoplift

Isn't it typically a "shoplifters will be prosecuted" sign? Perhaps the same thing in practice...

Don't forget "No parking" signs.

 

[prideandfall]

Ritual: a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mating_ritual

attempting to dodge a point by being a pedantic twat over one of two possible definitions a phrase... slick.