"I don't know what it is, other than something that radicals like to dream exists in society in a far greater frequency than reality dictates."

I think this sentence sums up krellin absolutely. Dismissing something without bothering to understand it.

Now I also have doubts about the existence of a rape culture, and whether making crude jokes of some forms makes me a contributor to it, but I'm not going to be like, "fuck that" until I fully understand the argument.

@X3non

I think we can safely assume that rapists don't all arrange their attacks to take advantage of a just woken up boner. And aside from that special case do you often get a boner without a sexual motive or active manipulation?

I am willing to accept that there are serial rapists and child molesters who are more than happy to use whatever instrument is at hand and don't have a sexual motive. But for the vast majority of rapists who go about things in the traditional style this does not appear to be the case.

@ Octavious: I also often get a boner when I doing my law papers… and not because the gals in the library are so hot. But that 's not the point. I do not deny, that some form of sex is involved, but it is not what drives people to rape. i don't know what the majority of rapists does, but they don't rape like you would bang your one-night stand or girlfriend or wife. They do rape for the urge to feel/demonstrate power. This is a rather usual behaviour among many social animals: apes do it (with male and female), rabbits do it, dogs do it. And prisoners do it :)

The point here is that it is not the girl's behaviour that incites somehow spontaneously rape. Most rapists usually plan their rape in advance (as most occur in family/neighbourhood/etc.), go to the places where whoever might be the victim can be taken safely (woods, empty side street buildings) or do it in gangs (Delhi busses, apparently). Also quite common is work place rape - all situations, where the rapist has power or needs to socially demonstrate it.

You're clearly a man who loves his law papers. Gotta respect that.

Would it not strike you as odd, though, if the most powerful desire and motivator known to mankind is not involved in these cases where the link appears so obvious? Also it occurs that rapes happen where the rapist feels powerful because if he didn't have the power advantage he wouldn't have the opportunity to do it.

Teach kids about sex.

talk about it publicly, and don't be embarrassed. This is a direct result of a lack of education, and it is the fault, if anyone's, not of our education system, but of parents who were raised to be embarrassed talking about sex.

We need to lead by example not attack kids who don't know any better.

Where is obiwan when we need him? His vast knowledge of male sexuality would really help clear things up

Sorry, that was meant for the "most ridiculous comment" thread

^ Orathaic +1

I'm still not quite convinced on the rape culture thing. For one, after all my education in social sciences, I've never heard a convincing definition or delineation of what 'culture' means. I don't deny its existence (it does exist), but I find social science, up until now, has had a hard time transcending from intuition into proper theory.

The second part of the term, 'rape', is actually a clearly defined thing. It is a crime of power, humiliation, sexuality in some horrible mixture. But to connect this term - with all it's evil connotations - to a culture as a whole, seems to serve no particular purpose than make a political point. Don't get me wrong, it's a point I support. But I think using this term to associate lewd jokes with rape creates a semblance of blame that, imho, contributes more to the problem than to the solution.

Also, it seems like the term gained more wide acceptance after 2011, which makes me think it's more of a fad than a theoretically sound description of anything.

Minister, not a fad. In fact, the term is in decline.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=rape+culture&year_start=1800&year_end=2010&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

"Rape culture" is absolutely a pop-pseudoscience fad cooked up by mushy-headed deconstructionists in the humanities. Thucydides obviously has made the mistake of paying attention in his liberal arts gen-eds.

Rape is a serious problem, but it's a problem caused by bad men physically assaulting women, not by a lack of disapproving clucks after an off color joke.

Wow, strawman much?

I didn't say failing to disagree with a rape joke causes rape. It does however connect with it.

If you want to say rape culture doesn't exist, fine. It doesn't change the stark realities of its content - a culture that is extremely casual about rape, especially in the arena of victim blaming. Victim blaming is positively rampant.

PS, the anti-intellectualism of many of you is everything that is wrong with American culture.

It's fine to dislike elitism, it's something else entirely to dismiss an argument because it comes from an academic.

I didn't even learn it from my classes to begin with, I learned it from... you know.... women.

Here is something one of my friends linked to me early on that meant a lot to me:

http://dbzer0.com/blog/feminists-dont-think-all-men-are-rapists-rapists-do

"I didn't say failing to disagree with a rape joke causes rape. It does however connect with it."

This is a meaningles sentence, or at least, it seems like one to me. I would love to hear it fleshed out and given precise meaning. I doubt that's going to happen, though. (I think this is at least tangentially related to what TMoW was saying).

"It's fine to dislike elitism, it's something else entirely to dismiss an argument because it comes from an academic. "

I guess you're aiming this at Invictus? I don't think he or anybody else dislikes what you're saying because it came from *an academic.* He was just pointing out that it came from a group of academics that, specifically, have done little but bubble up twaddle since they've been around. There's nothing anti-intellectual about finding a particular academic sub-discipline lacking in merit -- speaking of strawmen.

" a culture that is extremely casual about rape, especially in the arena of victim blaming. Victim blaming is positively rampant."

I don't know what's "casual" about it. It's a crime. Like any crime it's punished when proven. Is your definition of victim blaming so broad as to deny a man accused of rape of a fair trial?


" the anti-intellectualism of many of you is everything that is wrong with American culture."

There's not much intellectualism in humanities higher education. It's postmodern gibberish that soils and distorts reality and makes otherwise intelligent people like you buy into it through obscurantism.


"I didn't even learn it from my classes to begin with, I learned it from... you know.... women. "

And where do you think they learned it? I know plenty of women both just out of and still in college, and the few who really do buy into this warped way of thinking are the ones who were English or music majors. Not the accountants, not the biologists, not the speech and hearing specialists. The tortured and affected ideology you are bringing to this thread is not some great revealed truth, it's just a part of the warmed-over postmodern hogwash that thrives in the less rigorous areas of the academy.

Thanks for saying that much more briefly and better, semck83.

it's not the first time webdippers have acted that way, so I don't see it as a strawman.

Anyway, you want to do this? I'm utterly convinced rape culture is real. Give me enough time and I will begin saving links and post them all.

As to giving my sentence some meaning, fine.

Causation is complex. Similarly and for related reasons, responsibility (or blame) is complex.

The fault of a rape lies only with the rapist. This does not change however that there may have been conditions present in the general society or culture that made him or her more prone to rape.

Just as it is a spark in a dry field that causes a wildfire, and not the dry field itself, so too does rape culture (of which the rape joke thing is a minute example) set a favorable climate for rape.

Modern feminism has really zeroed in on rape as a rallying issue because it is so obviously egregious and wrong, but there purpose in doing so is to remind us that all sexism and indeed all discrimination is interconnected (this is what is meant by the term "intersectionality"). Rape culture refers to the normalization of rape in mainstream American (or any other) culture, but it is important for more than just rape, because there is so much more to rape culture than just coerced sex. As I was saying it is intricately connected to a society-wide misogynism:

catcalling, "boys will be boys", "well you shouldn't have dressed like a slut", YouTube comments along the lines of "I just clicked on the video to see her boobs", the "friendzone", the Internet/gamer culture in general as a hostile place for women (ahem.. webdip), offensive comments by politicians and public figures regarding women or rape, supposedly innocuous jokes by average people (almost always men) that normalize rape and sexual violence, a culture of silence about rape (ever wonder why so few are reported?), street harassment, and on and on and on.

And then you say "rape culture doesn't" exist. You can no longer plead ignorance, I suppose.

That post is directed at all skeptics here, not anyone in particular.

Ah, yes, objecting to sexism in mainstream culture is now considered "postmodern warmed-over hogwash." Glad to know where you stand at least.

For the record I think postmodernism is fucking stupid. There is nothing postmodern about opposing sexism.. unless I missed some memo.

Ah yes lastly Invictus you should probably know that the woman I'm referring to is a year older than me and is now a successful civil engineer. And the most maddeningly traditionalist woman I know is a clarinet major. Anecdotes, right.

Despite being an engineering discipline, civil engineering is probably the most liberal of all the science based disciplines as it is filled with tree huggers who want to save the world. That's why they went into civil engineering and not electrical, mechanical, aerospace, or one of the other ones used heavily by our military machine. I'm proud of my nephew, but he is every bit the hemp loving tree hugger (no, I don't mean he smokes pot, I mean he wears hemp and has all kinds of bio-friendly uses for it).

" it's not the first time webdippers have acted that way, so I don't see it as a strawman."

It doesn't matter how many times it happens -- criticizing a particular academic subdiscipline is not anti-intellectual.

"Just as it is a spark in a dry field that causes a wildfire, and not the dry field itself, so too does rape culture (of which the rape joke thing is a minute example) set a favorable climate for rape. "

Well, this is a claim that would need evidence to support it. That doesn't seem to concern you. Consider the following excerpt of your post:

"but thier purpose in doing so is to remind us that all sexism and indeed all discrimination is interconnected .... catcalling, "boys will be boys",.... the Internet/gamer culture in general as a hostile place for women (ahem.. webdip).... And then you say 'rape culture doesn't' exist. You can no longer plead ignorance, I suppose. "

Um, excuse me. They want to REMIND us that these things help cause rape? I can no longer plead ignorance? I'm sorry, Thuch. I could no longer plead ignorance if you had provided evidence and an actual argument establishing the causal connection you assert. But saying it don't make it so. It's exactly this fact-free, assertion-happy attitude that (I believe) Invictus and most other people on this thread are objecting to. Anybody can assert that 100 different undesirable behaviors are the background causation for [insert horrible activity here.] There's a pretty big argument to be made in between, though, and you seem to have no interest in making it -- just caterwalling that we're anti-intellectual mysogenists if we challenge you on the point.

As Invictus pointed out, there is only so "normalized" that any behavior can be that is currently a felony, to be accused of which all but ruins one's career absent a decisive refutation.

Even a decisive refutation pretty much fucks the accused's life over permanently until they move to another town and change their name.

"It doesn't matter how many times it happens -- criticizing a particular academic subdiscipline is not anti-intellectual."

Ehh.. well... yeah it kind of does. lol

"Even a decisive refutation pretty much fucks the accused's life over permanently until they move to another town and change their name."

Ah yes, the old claim that being accused of rape is somehow equatable to actually being raped.

I invite you to re-examine this infographic and tell me that the real problem is false accusation, not the lack of reporting because of a culture of silence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/01/rape_infographic.jpg

Racial discrimination is also outlawed in the legal code. But is it gone?

It's wonderful to say I'm just making assertions, but would you care to refute any single one of that laundry list? I'd like to see you try.

Are you going to try to tell me that all or even one of those things is not present in this culture? Tell me which one you'd like to be refuted and I will just google it and show you how prevalent they are.

I'll get you started:

https://www.google.com/search?q=street+harassment&oq=street+harassment&aqs=chrome.0.57j59j65l2j60l2.2108&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I never said being falsely accused of rape equates to *being* raped. Try reading for comprehension. Being falsely accused of murder does the same thing, but that doesn't make it equal to being murdered. come on. You are better than this, Thucy. And criticizing one discipline is *not* the same as criticizing all of academia. Do I need to explain sets and subsets to you? If it did, then criticizing one person would be the same as criticizing all of humanity. After all that one person is part of humanity just as that one discipline is part of academia.

And it isn't on the accused to prove their innocence but on the accuser. You accuse us of contributing to your precious rape culture vut have provided no evidence therewith. you are the accuser. the burden of proof or at least a compelling abundance of evidence is on *you*.

Wow, almost every sentence a fallacy or straw man! Congratulations. Certainly a personal record. Maybe not a webdip one, but up there.

" 'It doesn't matter how many times it happens -- criticizing a particular academic subdiscipline is not anti-intellectual.'

"Ehh.. well... yeah it kind of does. lol"

No. It doesn't. At all.

In the 1950s, Noam Chomsky roundly criticized behaviorist psychology, then the dominant mode of thought in psychology. Does this mean he was anti-intellectual? No. It means he had an intellectual critique to make -- a largely correct one, it turned out. These criticisms are just as often intellectual themselves as anti-intellectual. Every time you repeat this fallacy, it just gets worse for you. Let it go.

"Ah yes, the old claim that being accused of rape is somehow equatable to actually being raped."

No, that wasn't my claim. You're so sensitive to various mysogenist touchstones that you don't even read what I write.

I didn't even say it was a bad thing. Go back and read. What I said was that the fact that it's true calls into serious question the claim that rape is "normalized" in our culture.

"I invite you to re-examine this infographic and tell me that the real problem is false accusation, not the lack of reporting because of a culture of silence."

I invite to you to respond to an argument that I'm actually making.

"Racial discrimination is also outlawed in the legal code. But is it gone? "

It's largely not, actually (outlawed), and it's certainly never a felony.

"It's wonderful to say I'm just making assertions, but would you care to refute any single one of that laundry list? I'd like to see you try."

Well, you have yet to advance an argument, so since you're the one making the positive claim (that there's a causal link), I can stand here with my arms by my side and your case is refuted already. Once you give an argument, I may consider refuting it (if I find it faulty). The thing about just making assertions is, you only have to point out that they're just unfounded assertions to refute them. So, request granted, I guess. lol.

Certainly I don't think that whatever lack of welcome women may find when trying to participate on webdip IN ANY WAY contributes to a cultural liklihood of women being raped. I don't know what more to say, because you have given so little argument that there is nowhere to attack the claim beyond saying it is absurd. If I said that murder was made more likely by people studying international relations, how would YOU refute THAT?

"Are you going to try to tell me that all or even one of those things is not present in this culture?"

No, of course they're prevalent. They're even undesireable. I just don't think they're casually linked to rape in any significant way. And I know for sure you haven't given an argument that they are.

As for street harassment, it's actually one of the better items on your list. I edited your list in my quote, you'll note (inserting ellipses to notify of this fact), because some of the items are probably related to rape, and I have no issue with that. Street harassment is one of the ones I took off. But there's a world of difference between saying street harassment is causally related to rape and saying sexual jokes or remarks in any company are. If you think otherwise -- well, burden's on you. So far, you don't seem real interested in meeting it.

Finally, that is a pretty little picture with no evidence to back it up. I would like to see the proof of all these so called unreported rapes that leads to the huge set of rapists. Science and law demands facts in evidence. Activists don't. I'm a scientists, a logical mind, by nature not an activist.

i already linked to the methodology draug

and anyway i'm frankly baffled how behavior that excuses or tolerates rape must be proved to be linked to rape.

My grandfather was not racist, but he lived in times of extreme racial oppression, and did nothing. Certainly he is more blameless than a lyncher (another of my great grandfathers was one by the by), but he is not wholly blameless.

Are you familiar with the concept of micro-aggressions?