An anti-rape invention is making the rounds on FB again. Marcus Williams appreciates the appeal, but doesn’t think the product would succeed at stopping rape.
[Author note: It took me several attempts over three days to write this, scrapping more than one near-complete draft along the way. Ultimately, I'm indebted to a rape victim who wished not to be named for hopefully transforming my tone from defensive man, to man who understands and even agrees with the appeal of the subject matter, despite my objection to it on practical grounds. My heart and thanks go out to her, even if she doesn't read it or is ultimately disappointed by my take. --M.W.]
There’s an image I’ve been seeing making the rounds on Facebook lately, of a painful-looking invention being celebrated as an ingenious anti-rape device.
I can’t vouch for the authenticity of the blurb that usually accompanies the picture, but here’s the most recent version I’ve seen accompanying the pic on Facebook:
OUCH!!
Rape has become endemic in South Africa, so a medical technician named Sonette Ehlers developed a product that immediately gathered national attention there. Ehlers had never forgotten a rape victim telling her forlornly, “If only I had teeth down there.”
Some time afterward, a man came into the hospital where Ehlers works in excruciating pain because his penis was stuck in his pants zipper.
Ehlers merged those images and came up with a product she called Rapex. It resembles a tube, with barbs inside. The woman inserts it like a tampon, with an applicator, and any man who tries to rape the woman impales himself on the barbs and must go to an emergency room to have the Rapex removed.
When critics complained that it was a medieval punishment, Ehlers replied tersely, “A medieval device for a medieval deed.”
- Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof
This is the kind of picture and narrative that always sends me running to Snopes.com for an analysis of how much is bullshit and how much might be true. This story gets a “Partly True” verdict from Snopes, which explains that the named inventor did indeed unveil the device for the first time in 2005, but that they could find no evidence that it ever went into production or is likely to do so. If anyone can find a confirmed case of one of these things actually being used and doing what it’s designed to do, please share the link in comments, but my Google search didn’t turn up any evidence that it ever made it past the prototype stage.
Aside from the reflexive “OUCH!!” reaction I have in common with many men when I see the picture, I have two separate aspects I react to. There’s the function it symbolizes, which I support and can empathize to some degree with the women who say enthusiastic things about it, and then there’s what I think of it’s real-world prospects, which I think are so bad it never will or should make it to market.
Symbolically, this thing represents a way to hurt a rapist the way he most deserves to be hurt, as a direct consequence of raping, so he’d be bringing it on himself. While this invention fits my idea of “cruel and unusual” and would bother me as an after-the-act punishment, I can’t say I’m troubled by the idea of a rapist being injured in this way, just like I’m totally cool with the idea of a rapist getting kicked in the balls out of self-defense. My hypothetical tolerance, though, is mild compared to how I think many if not most rape victims regard this thing. In a discussion about this device, one survivor of an especially vicious and violent rape confided to me that her raw reaction to this invention, and men who argue against it, was this:
So for all of human history men have carried a deadly weapon in their pants, and the minute we get something that barely evens the odds, that damages but cannot kill, guys are freaked out. How guys feel when they see that device, the fear that a sexual encounter could end in bodily harm, is how we feel all the time.”
Having been told of just some of the details of what happened to her, I can’t blame her for feeling that way, and on that symbolic level, where this invention is almost like anti-rape art, I share that feeling, albeit less intensely than someone who has actually been raped. Looking at the real-world prospects, though, I think this thing has far too many drawbacks and potential for failure to be a good idea.
One of the first problems that occurs to many men is that while few have any sympathy for a rapist getting “bit” by a RapeX, it could also be used by vindictive women to punish partners for whatever wrongdoing they decide merits some phallic mangling as retribution. I have seen it argued that it would be highly unlikely for that to occur because any remotely attentive lover would detect the device during foreplay and be able to remove it. Even ignoring how a man might react upon discovering the device that way, I think the argument fails in two ways: 1) Foreplay doesn’t always include the kind of contact or visualization of the vagina that would lead to detecting the device before penetration with the penis; and 2) Even if it would take an inept or selfish lover to miss it, it does not follow that he deserves the same fate, during consensual sex, as a rapist.
While the “innocent penis” argument is compelling to me and I would imagine most men, it’s not the only argument against this thing. I think the downsides are pretty obvious just by thinking about how it’s supposed to work in a best case scenario, and then how likely those best case scenarios are to achieve.
Imagine a woman wears this thing and it works exactly as designed – it incapacitates her rapist, she gets away, and he gets apprehended and imprisoned when he has to seek medical attention to have the RapeX removed. Maybe he’s even so physically damaged that he’s rendered physically incapable of ever raping again, and/or so tramautized that he’s too afraid to ever rape again. In such a scenario, the woman still got raped. It was cut short, which is good compared to a prolonged rape, but penetration still occurred if the rapist got snagged, so her rape was not prevented. In the best case scenario that rapist is prevented from going on to rape again, but the incident does not prevent other rapists.
For other rapists (i.e. any would-be rapist who has not encountered a RapeX) to be deterred by the RapeX, they would have to be aware that it exists, and concerned enough about how likely they are to encounter it to be worried. Paradoxically, if the awareness of RapeX is high enough to scare potential rapists, it’s also easy to simply check for and remove the device if they’re about to rape. Remember that attentive lover being safe from it? So would an attentive rapist.
In the ideal scenario, RapeX lets a victim get away. I can only speculate, but I would imagine that if a rapist was not completely incapacitated as hoped, or there were other attackers or accomplices present, or it was one of those careful ones that found and removed the device, it would not present an opportunity to escape, and it would increase the risk of bodily injury or death to the victim. This could be said of any attempt to resist that failed (screaming for help, struggling, etc.), but compared to those, I would expect a direct attack (or threat to attack) on a rapist’s penis would be even more likely to be met with violent retribution. The RapeX would not only increase chances of injuring the rapist, but also increase the risk of severe physical injury to the victim, beyond those normally incurred during a rape. I can even imagine a rapist who finds one cutting it, inverting it, and using it to inflict greater damage on the victim.
What are the health and hygiene implications of how to use this device? I don’t have any specific risks to cite, but one scary-ass looking prototype doesn’t establish that it would be safe, easy, and affordable to use.
Even if the ambient risk of rape is high, victims don’t know when and where it’s going to happen. Obviously, they can’t reach into their purse once a rape has begun to insert this thing, so using it would be like wearing a seatbelt—you wear it pretty much all the time just in case, so it’s there when you need it. That raises lots of questions:
- Is that something a lot of women are going to be willing to do—walk around with what is essentially an internal chastity belt most of the time?
- Is it comfortable enough to tolerate having in so much?
- Would there be risks of infection and toxic shock to contend with?
- If it has to be switched out with new ones periodically, would it be affordable?
- What are the implications for young girls? If women become “too dangerous” to rape, won’t young girls need to routinely use these to avoid becoming the most frequent targets?
- How extensive is the damage? Presumably, any soft tissue is at risk, not just rapist’s penises, so it seems likely that inexperienced or clumsy users (or their partners) might accidentally impale their fingers while trying to adjust or remove it. If, as the description suggest, the only way to get it off is surgery, that’s a pretty severe consequence for clumsy handling.
I might be wildly underestimating women’s willingness to use this if it were available, but I have a hard time imagining it catching on as just a routine thing women do as a rape countermeasure. It seems like a lot of hassle, expense, and potential risk to their own health—even without encountering a rapist—for a best case result that wouldn’t even prevent them from getting raped. I strongly doubt that even the most fanatical proponent of this device would support making its use compulsory, so I think the end result even if it was brought to market would be that very few women would adopt it into their regular routine.
However, many of those same risks and inconveniences that would deter regular use are not a factor for that first problem mentioned a while back, of women being able to use it intentionally to punish a non-rapist man—for whatever reason. For that kind of use, it would be like putting in a diaphragm before sex that was expected to occur, and it would be easier to lure an unsuspecting partner into penetrating the barbed sheath than a rapist. Even if RapeX was known as a popular anti-rape device, the unsuspecting partner wouldn’t feel any need for caution, and to ensure maximum penetration and damage on the first thrust, a woman could be sure to be all lubed up, unlike a rape scenario.
In terms of the logistics of it, I think it would work so much more effectively against a consensual partner than a rapist, and without all the day-to-day hassle of “just in case” use, that as much as I’d love to see rapists RapeX’ed out of circulation, I think the real-world prospects would harm women and non-rapist men a lot more than they would harm those rapists.
What do you think? Do you think I underestimate the prospects of much good this product could do if it ever made it to market? Do you think it poses a risk to non-rapist men? Would your reaction be similar to some kind of anti-rape-by-envelopment device, like a weaponized cock ring, or is there something special about the anti-penis kind of device?
Photo: Unverifiable image courtesy of Facebook
About Marcus Williams
Like you, I can see an “attentive rapist,” a sadist who needs to hurt and traumatize his victim, using one of these devices against his victim in ways I will leave to the imagination.
Yeah, I didn’t feel like painting that picture, but it’s not too hard to imagine some truly sadistic ways it could be turned against the victim. Having had the misfortune to ponder that while composing this, I don’t recommend it. Go look at a LOLcat instead.
From this straight to lolcats, cold turkey, is truly traumatic. I had to taper off with some fist fight YouTubes, then a little 12 O’Clock High (love those planes), then Bugs Bunny walloping Elmer Fudd…
Who’s to say female rapists won’t use this against men? It’d be a good way to deflect the crime and blame him for it.
I guarantee the rate of super violent physical assaults would increase if these were used, a rapist getting that on his penis….I wouldn’t be surprised if he beat her to death over it.
A lot of rape happens in relationships does it not? So those rapes would probably not have these devices in effect, it might give a sense of security to women but still it would mean they’re going to be penetrated before it works.
Rape is a crime that is quite sinister in nature, by definition the rapists often wait till the victim is vulnerable and a rapist could easily check for the existence of the device. Could the device be reversed and used as a super-evil condom? It could possibly be used as a weapon against her and I’d guess that would be a far far harder surgery.
I don’t mind if women use these devices to protect themselves but if it’s ever used to rape a man, the law would need to add more to the sentence to punish them I think. And if a woman isn’t being raped but is trying to be sinister with it, I’d hope the assault laws could cover it.
Maybe I’m being naïve, but I don’t see this being favored among female rapists. Assuming a female rapist wants the sex act to last beyond the first stroke, this device would interfere with that goal. I can, however, imagine that in the vindictive kind of scenario that’s been mentioned, part of the scheme might be not only to injure the man with the device, but to frame him for rape, since it’s made to protect against rapists, amiright?
I don’t think such use would be common at all, or that women in general get excited about the prospect of using it that way. However, I would predict such cases to outnumber the cases of actual rapists getting snagged, because it’s so much easier and hassle-free to *plan* to use it, than to walk around always wearing it to be “safe”. I obviously can’t do more than guess about how long each device would last before a woman would have to either replace it or remove it to clean it, but if it’s in the ballpark of tampons or diaphragms or menstrual cups, that would likely involve daily maintenance, not just insert-and-forget once a month, pretty much every day of her life, since no age is completely safe from rape. The hygiene overhead is therefore much larger for use against rape than use against a man who done wrong.
I don’t think it has any bona fide chance of being produced and sold (or given away), so I consider most of this hypothetical, even though I still think it works as art. What it evokes is real, even if the potential is not.
Maybe I’m being naïve, but I don’t see this being favored among female rapists. Assuming a female rapist wants the sex act to last beyond the first stroke, this device would interfere with that goal.
Yeah. Seems unlikely. Not making much sense.
I don’t think “women using it intentionally to punish a non-rapist man” to be a particulary persuasive argument against this device. It’s far more easy and safer for women wanting to mangle or mutilate a man’s penis to just take a knife or scissors to it while he is asleep. It’s reminiscent of the myth from the Vietnam war of VC prostitutes lining their vagina with razor blades (one would think it would be much safer and more effective to hide a gun or knife under the pillow for instance). This again I suspect came from a combination of the burning sensation of chlamydia infection and the ancient folklore of vagina dentata.
If it is effective in stopping a rape quickly even though penetration must’ve occured then that’s a valid point given how common, brutal and violent assault rape is in South Africa. Hence the argument that it doesn’t stop rape because there has to be one penetration to “catch” the penis is not an sufficient arguement against it in my view.
However, here are problems I see with it:
As has been pointed out; for this to be a deterrent it has to be known and somewhat common and if the rapist know about it it doesn’t seem to hard to locate and extract by violent means before the rapist does any penetration with his penis.
The Snopes link (which was botched in the articles) says that the inventor claim it is not going to break the skin on the penis (or else there would be a risk of fluid exposure – a real issue in a country as South Africa with a high rate of HIV infections). So the barbs are hooking ONto the skin without breaking the skin, yet it will be so painful that the rapist can neither urinate nor walk and it would need surgery to remove. I am at loss to understand why one would need surgery to remove something that doesn’t break the skin. I am also sceptical to the claim that some non-penetrative barbs on a penis are going to make it impossible to even walk or making it impossible to simply cut it off with for instance a pair of bandage-scissor rather than having a surgeon removing it. The claim that it would make a man unable to walk and unable to urinate were made at the same time as it was disclosed that it hadn’t been tried on men, just on a plastic male model (which presumably were unable to walk and pee even before the application of this device).
If the barbs actually penetrates the rapist’s penis then there will be blood and one have a even stronger vector for veneral and other diseases than semen.
Although it looks intimidating and very painful I have serious doubts to whether it will totally incapacitate the rapist (which may be on drugs or “high” in adrenaline). A agreee with Marcus that the likelihood of getting murdered or beaten by the rapist would then increase dramatically.
In short I’ll call COUbullshitGH! on the inventors claims and I suspect that it never got into production because it doesn’t work as intended.
Although I understand some women’s reaction (ah, revenge) when they see the articles and pictures of this device I dislike statements describing men’s penises as a deadly weapon all men have in their pants.
I agree that’s not a compelling argument against it. However, my (intended) point was more about establishing that the corollary also fails, meaning it’s incorrect to argue for it on the basis that it prevents the rape of the wearer. At best, it would interrupt it and give the victim a chance to escape, which would be great, but that’s not prevention.
I agree with the rest of your comments, and in particular how the inventor’s claims have not been substantiated, so there’s no empirical data to suggest that the wishful thinking is close to the truth.
I hadn’t even thought of the increased risk of infection if it draws blood, but that’s another strike against, too, especially in areas with very high HIV rates, such as the area that inspired the inventor. Seems to me it either causes superficial enough injury to fail, or serious enough to draw blood.
Thanks for pointing out the broken Snopes link. Fixed now.
I’m not skeptical of the argument at all. One, you ignore human squeamishness. This ISN’T cutting a penis off – the women don’t have to get that messy to do it. Plus, it isn’t nearly as severe looking. I grew up as a male – I know how quick some girls were to kick you in the testicles for any perceived slight. I have no problems imagining a scenario where some women talks herself into believe that using one of these on a boyfriend she’s mad at would just be a prank – the equivalent of giving them a dick-splinter or something.
The quote from the rape victim really says it all to me.
So long as people believe that my penis is a “deadly weapon” we are never going to see eye-to-eye.
This, to me, is the much larger problem here.
Honestly, I wouldn’t care if this device went into production. The much larger problem is the idea that I am inherently dangerous simply because I am a man. That mentality kills my otherwise sympathetic feelings each and every time.
There are plenty of gun owners who don’t go around killing people but that doesn’t mean guns aren’t a weapon. Just because you don’t use your penis to inflict physical damage, doesn’t mean it’s not used this way (as a weapon) by others.
Except that guns are designed to be exclusively weapons. Penises have a different purpose…
same thing goes for teeth then. Most people dont go biting other humans, but that doesent mean you cant use them as weapons to hurt other people.
Listen I know what you are saying. But a penis is NOT a weapon. It cant knock you off, it cant cut your throath , you cant use it as a gun (you probably arrested if you wave it around), you cant knife somebody down, you cant even use it as a bat. Before somebody can penetrate a woman, that person need to incapacitate her. So from this point, hands are more dangerous. How can he rape a woman withouth hands? He cant, he wont even be able to pull the pants down. Hands may be used violently, feets can kick you down even teeths can also be dangerous (just look at a zombie movie) but a penis. There is no way it can harm you. The evil rapist may use his hands to immobilize you, or a gun to make you submitt. But then the hands are the weapon, im all circumstances.
There are plenty of gun owners who don’t go around killing people but that doesn’t mean guns aren’t a weapon. Just because you don’t use your penis to inflict physical damage, doesn’t mean it’s not used this way (as a weapon) by others.
Guns are created for the express purpose of being a weapon to hurt others. The penis was not created with that in mind. At its basic function the penis has two purposes. To deposit semen inside of a woman for procreation and to allow for urine to be removed from the body.
Also even when someone using a gun in self defense they are doing so under the understanding that they are hurting someone for the purpose of protecting themselves from harm. Either way they are hurting someone at its base purpose.
A man using his penis during sex with a woman is not automatically indicative that he is hurting her. What makes it harmful is when he is doing it under circumstance that she does not want or is unable to turn down (as in being drugged or is unconscious).
At bear minimum you are going to have to prove that the base purpose of the penis is to harm people.
Would you say vaginas are weapons?
I would say that to the degree that a vagina can rape a man it is a weapon.
However, the force and brutality of many, if not most, rapes against women creates a different type of scenario. I’m not saying that rape against men by women isn’t horrible, I’m saying, the “deadly weapon” thing – rape can actually kill a woman, and it has, from bleeding.
Certainly there are ways to imagine rape against a man killing him, it’s certainly a fuck of a lot harder to conceive of. Eventually good studies will be made showing what female on male rape looks like and its prevalence. As it stands now, there just isn’t enough data to be truly conclusive. We’re all just speculating based upon early numbers in studies that lump together drunken sex with forcible envelopment, and while both may constitute rape in some regards, they are grossly different. We need more data.
Last, the rape victim didn’t imply that the penis IS a weapon. She said it felt like a deadly weapon sometimes. The experience of having your body physically tortured, torn, battered, bruised, bloodied by a penis makes a woman feel that way.
If you were beaten up, if your penis were scraped, bent, bruised, permanently scarred and took years to heal by a woman’s hand (this certainly has happened to some men), then women’s hands would seem to you like weapons of harm. Because of your experience. No one could say, “hands are for all these other things! They aren’t meant to hurt you!” but your experience and memory of what a woman’s hands could do to you would always remain true. True to you. It would be wrong to try to tell all women they were bad because they simply had hands, but people should be sympathetic to your experience.
For Marcus, he gained empathy by talking to this woman, he understood that to her, this is reality. Maybe it’s not to him or his other female friends, but for her this is reality.
Mike L, that you lose sympathy for someone because they’d been physically tortured with a penis as a tool for harm scares me. It scares me that you seem to lack that empathy of a person’s experience. An experience others share.
I understand your comment, but calling it a weapon can also be dehumanizing to men. Our hands, bodies etc can be weapons, but if you read the comment it’s saying ALL men are carrying a “deadly weapon” in their pants, the words I myself find dehumanizing as if we are rape machines and not decent humans. The majority of men do not rape, saying all of us have deadly weapons is insulting and insensitive on their part. Why should Mike L have sympathy for someone treating him as a degrading beast, a warrior carrying around weapons 24/7, do babies have weapons?
I realize what you are saying but please try to empathize with how men are portrayed. It’s attitudes like that, saying we have deadly weapons, that keep women afraid of us, society afraid of us to be near kids, treats men as this violent beast who can cause harm and death. I think it’d be better if the quote-author had said some men use it as a deadly weapon, but to say all men have a deadly weapon in the way they did is something I feel is insulting to men. Would it be fair to say women’s vaginas are weapons, ALL women carry a deadly weapon in their pants?
Archy, (and also in reply to Mike L. below at 8/7, 2:34am)
I hear what you’re saying, and know the feeling. However, I think you’re putting an interpretation on the victim quote that it doesn’t deserve, and that’s partly (maybe even mostly) my fault as a writer for not framing it properly with enough context and interpretation of my own. It was an honest mistake, as I was trying to use a quote that she specifically told me I could use, while being minimalist in sharing or paraphrasing anything else she told me because I did not want to violate things told to me in confidence. I’ll try to elaborate a bit more, while still being vague enough to avoid over-sharing without her consent.
It seems to me that you and others are reacting to the victim quote about weaponized penises as if it were the central thesis of a carefully considered essay about men and/or rape. If it was that, I’d be rebutting the hell out of it, too. However, even when she shared it, she told me with great self-awareness that it was meant to express a raw reaction, not a belief. In other words, she can’t help the feeling – when looking at an image that triggers pretty strong rape associations – but she knows when she thinks about it that it’s not a fair or accurate description of the world. In still other words, she *agrees* with you that not all penises are weapons, so that quote was not a worldview, but an attempt to express to *one* other person (me), an emotion that she still struggles with as a result of past trauma. To my mind, she’s winning that struggle, and deserving of empathy for the reason it’s even an issue for her. She was not characterizing all men or all penises to a wide audience, and to the extent it came off that way in my article, it’s my fault, not hers. To her even greater credit, she wasn’t even expressing her belief about men – she was expressing a traumatic association, and acknowledge it as such without debate or me “calling her out”.
I believe that from our exchange, she got a feeling of empathy and being understood. I sure hope so. For me, that connection was good, but the pragmatic value I got out of it as a writer was realizing that when I wrote about this invention (since I already planned to at that point), it was important to include an understanding of it’s appeal to go along with all the reasons I thought it would fail. When only one or the other is discussed, it always looks like a big fight. When both are acknowledged, I think there’s more common ground, even though it’s still hard to see past all the smoke of the fight.
If my “source” goes and writes articles about all men carrying deadly weapons around in their pants, and that’s her position after considered analysis, my impression of her and what she meant is subject to change, but in this case, in this context, I’m not remotely worried that she’s a hate monger or afflicted with a hateful mentality. She eloquently expressed a feeling that I re-expressed less eloquently in an article broadcasted to a larger audience, and the scope of what she meant got lost in translation.
AH ok, that’s understandable. Words have have a heavy impact depending on how they are used.
“Mike L, that you lose sympathy for someone because they’d been physically tortured with a penis as a tool for harm scares me.”
This is such an extreme mischaracterization of what I actually wrote that it is hard to believe this is not a purposeful attack.
What I actually wrote was:
“The much larger problem is the idea that I am inherently dangerous simply because I am a man. That mentality kills my otherwise sympathetic feelings each and every time.”
The attack does not eliminate my empathy. Developing a hateful mentality does. Claiming I wrote anything else is clearly wrong.
The mentality the quoted rape victim displayed is exactly what led to Bernard Goetz shooting four unarmed boys because he “thought they might attack him.” It is also what let the jury acquit him later; his previous experience as a mugging victim was credited as justifying his later violent response.
The mentality quoted above is also what enables people to claim that Wanetta Gibson should avoid jail despite stealing years of Brian Banks’ life. The idea that there are victims *somewhere* and so it is perfectly acceptable to allow an innocent man to be jailed and for his accuser to experience no serious repercussions.
The mentality quoted above is what leads police officers, security guards, and store clerks to stop and question myself and my brothers time and again, accusing us of crimes we have never even dreamed of committing.
But above all, it is the MENTALITY that I take issue with, as I stated originally. I have plenty of empathy for victims of violence. But I have very little for mongers of hate.
Mike L says that ‘the problem is the idea that I am inherently dangerous simply because I am a man’
I understand that sentiment, and I see his frustration with the ‘men haters’.
But still, it seems to me, that it is the men who are busy killing and terrorizing the rest of the world’s population (women and children) in wars and gang land violence.
It is true that there are female soldiers and politicians, but the majority of rulers and people in power are male.
Looking at Syria – which side of the conflict offers peace and protection for women, the old and children?
I suggest a curfew for all men; they should not be allowed to carry guns at any time and not allowed outside except in company of their mothers.
And I’m not entirely joking.
Looking at Syria – which side of the conflict offers peace and protection for women, the old and children?
why did you leave out the noncombatant men, from that list?
Because you’re assuming a level of intelligence from the writer that does not exist.
The majority of child abuse is perpetrated by women. Would you say women are dangerous to kids? Have the same fear of women being alone with kids as you fear violence with men?
I thought it was about 40%, have you got the reference for majority? Or is it due to the fact that the majority of female paedophiles rape boys, and boys are much more likely to not report the abuse, therefore we can infer that women probably perpetrate most child abuse?
In all honesty, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. Women have far more access to children than men.
57% or so female last I checked overall, mostly neglect and physical abuse. The rate could be much higher given the piss-poor reporting of female perpetrated sexual violence as you say.
If I remember I’ll try find the stats when I’m not half asleep.
These stats are as true as they can be (statistics are easily manipulated and always vary). But yes, women are with children more, and there are far more women who are full-time single mothers, so children are with mothers significantly more, as a whole.
However, this is called correlation, not causation. This does not mean that women are more violent. Which I believe is Archy’s point.
Well my point was to show women can be violent, and to one group they are the biggest threat (kids). Is it really fair though to treat ALL women as dangerous to kids because of this, similar to how people are suggesting all men are dangerous to women. The reason I bring this up in comments often is to try get women to empathize how it feels to be a man in society, seen as a criminal, beast, etc. Could you imagine your kids (or others) finding out the stats on child abuse and having them be fearful around you. Imagine if your kids knew mummy was most likely to harm them, so every time daddy left their fear elevated. You know in your heart you don’t want to harm your kids, and you’d die defending them but they still see you as this shroedingers child-abuser n what not. Imagine those kids waking up thinking “Is today the day mummy smothers us n commits suicide?”
Luckily kids are pretty oblivious to stats so they can enjoy their childhood, but the hyper-focus on stats, violence, risk etc can really lead to a miserable life. Kids are most at risk with their parent/s I believe from all the stats I’ve seen but I wouldn’t want them to fear their parents, just as I don’t want women to fear men. As adults we all take our safety pretty seriously but I think it’s important to not get TOO caught up in stats, risks, etc, otherwise we can really goto extremes and have kids monitored 24/7 to protect them from parents, etc.
I used to enjoy making goofy faces at babies in store lines and talking to small children etc., until several of my female friends who were new mothers told me that they don’t like it when ANY strangers show interest in their babies and children. Including women these days. There have been too many stories in the news about female kidnappers who steal babies or who help pedophile boyfriends and so on. So now I ignore other people’s children because I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.
I think we live in a crappy society where all strangers are viewed as threats; to be honest, I don’t really like talking to anyone in public places anymore because I never know who will turn out to be crazy.
I think society is going a sad direction. Deep down when babies look at me and smile, I cannot help but smile back. I dunno how they do it but they bring this positive energy (when they aren’t crying n screaming, my ears bleed!). But being an adult male, who is single with no kids, I avoid children…just makes me too uncomfortable wondering if parents will think something dodgy is going on. Doesn’t matter that I would do my best to keep the child safe if danger was around, I still feel nervous even around my cousins n friends kids. First time I held a baby was when I was 26!
The focus on all the fear is just so bad for society I think, I love towns that everyone can say gday and be friendly without people freaking out. I’d rather people talk to me about some random thing than sit there, eyes front, body in defensive posture, stressed n quiet. To me that isn’t society, that is just a bunch of individuals walking around like apocalypse survivors.
I always wonder whether to strike up convos or not, whether to say hello or not…wondering if that person will feel more threatened or less. I am a tall, large bodied male and know my presence is most likely quite intimidating which is sad because I have no interest in harming anyone. I actually feel more comfortable around older people here because they’re more likely to be “oldschool” and talk, usually they grew up around the town and seem more confident in striking up a convo. Being around younger people up to their 30′s….they seem less connected to each other in public, more defensive, quiet, less confident, but that could just be the people I meet in particular.
Most child abuse is by the parents, or close friends/relatives….for the amount of time kids spend around strangers I’d say they are probably far safer. Maybe people need to realize that MOST of us are not violent, are probably just as scared, and I’d say most people are ESPECIALLY protective of kids and will be more likely to step in to protect a kid vs an adult. But…with the current climate of fear of pedophilia etc, that may be changing. There are kids that regularly play on the footpath near my home, sometimes they fall n start crying and I usually look out to see what is going on. I actually dread the day they need help, I am willing to give it (have a first aid course under my belt at least) but I am also deathly afraid of being that adult male around kids who aren’t mine, kids who are crying and hurt. If possible I’d send a woman in to see what is wrong because women are far less likely to be questioned on their behaviour with the kids. Like this news case:
“On Nov. 28, 2002, 2-year-old Abigail Rae died by drowning in a village pond in England. Her death is currently stirring debate because the ongoing inquest revealed an explosive fact. A man passing by was afraid to guide the lost child to safety because he feared being labeled “a pervert.”"
ht tp://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,190586,00.html
Or this case (may or may not be true due to it being an internet comment but I’d say it’s true)
“I was accused of abusing a child when I rescued him from drowning. I was swimming on beach and I noticed a 8 or 9 year old kid come off his little surf board and he sunk straight to the bottom, about 10 feet deep. I swam down and rescued the kid and swam him back to the beach.
As soon as I got the child to the beach he was crying and coughing up water, his mother ran down screaming to leave her boy alone. She was screaming at me so loudly that people were crowding around to see what had happened. At this time the life guards turned up and I advised them what happened as I could not talk any sense to the mother. The life guards took the boy and mother to the life guard hut and I went back to my towel on the beach.
One of the life guards came back to me 10 minutes later and ask me to stay where I am because the police have been called and the mother wants to press charges. The cops turned up 20 minutes later and interviewed me and at that time another lady came up to the police and corroborated my story. The cops let me go, no apology from mother who was marching off the beach arguing with the cops after they told her what happened.
If it was not for the other lady I believe I would be sitting in a police cell for rescuing a kid.”
ht tp://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/sstzi/a_woman_just_called_me_a_pedophile_after_i/c4grqmk
One comment on there SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF ME if it’s true.
“As a criminal defense attorney, I can confirm that there is a direct path from what you did (which of course was a noble and good thing) to having to register as a sex offender. What you and OP witnessed was the first step in an all too common chain of events. A parent or guardian misinterprets an interaction between another person and their child. By the time the police conduct a forensic interview, the child has already been whipped into a frenzy by the worried parent who has filled the child’s mind with all of their twisted speculations. And, kids are smart – they look to please authority figures. When the police interviewer starts looking for answers, the kid figures that the answers must be the same answers that mommy was looking for – and that’s exactly what they give them. That interview is recorded into evidence and it is very hard to attack. The State isn’t going to make you a plea offer that doesn’t require sex offender registration for life because they don’t want to appear soft on pedophiles. So, now you’re going to trial. First of all, pray you qualify for the public defender because you’re going to need an expert witness to attack that interview with the kid and experts are the only thing more expensive than attorneys. If you don’t qualify, you’re looking at $10,000 (at least) to defend yourself. Notwithstanding, you have a jury that as soon as they hear the accusation spends their time imagining all of the sick and twisted things you must have done to this poor kid. The only reason that the system does a good job locking up guilty people is because it pretty much locks up anybody. ”
These don’t seem to be all that rare…it seems men especially are putting their life, reputation, on the line to rescue children and some parent/s are very very quick on the trigger to accuse the man of foul play. A child dies because a man is scared of what people would do, another man nearly gets jailed or at least has a risk to his life n reputation simply for being a strange male near someones kid. Society is doing an excellent job at scaring men from being any type of role model for kids, I dread interactions with kids because of this stupid hysteria and it causes me to have a hysteria of interacting with kids! It may go so far that I will be too afraid to help a child out on some situations unless I am sure I am protected by law for helping.
If I find a lost child, I’ll call the police n try to be somewhat close by whilst asking women to stand by too just for the safety. I’ll treat a child with first aid if I can but I guarantee I’ll be shitting bricks whilst doing so, it’s really not a situation I want to ever be in. I love helping people but not when my life, reputation can so easily be destroyed. Most men I know share this same fear, mostly younger men but even fathers. Society is fucking up healthy adult male interactions with children, it’s no wonder there is a shortage of scout leaders, male role models, etc. If you treat men as animals, beasts, pedophiles, violent monsters, don’t be surprised when they become afraid to be human and interact with women, kids, etc.
Do most women actually understand this happens for men? Part of my reluctance to wanting to be a father is because men and kids has this tarnished view. How sick is it when people will readily and easily accuse a man of being a pedophile for merely talking to a kid? This thread goes on about it more
ht tp://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/can-a-dad-take-his-daughter-clothes-shopping-and-other-indignities-of-modern-dadhood/
It’s sad that not only are strange men treated so bad but women now are also in the suspicion line as you say. People are becoming too damn afraid and that is going to seriously harm our society, are the children going to have good male n female role models? or are they going to be raised to be afraid of everything, especially men? Men suffer from this, women suffer, children suffer, everyone suffers because FEAR is ruling our lives it seems.
/endrant
@ Sarah
“I used to enjoy making goofy faces at babies in store lines and talking to small children etc., until several of my female friends who were new mothers told me that they don’t like it when ANY strangers show interest in their babies”
I still wave, smile, and say hi to little children. I’ve never noticed a bad reaction from people. It might be because I’ve always done so as a reaction to a child smiling or waving or talking to me. It would just feel cruel to ignore them. I suppose I could be making the mothers nervous, but I’d rather that than make a kid feel bad.
Once at night I walked up to a mother and daughter who were stationed in front of a bank selling girl scout cookies. I was wearing rather intimidating clothing and could tell they were nervous. I asked the girl what her favorite cookies were. She didn’t say so I told her mine were the thin mints. Then she told me what hers was. I bought one box of each, turned away from the daughter, but towards the mother and turned back. I told the girl that there were too many cookies for one person to eat and said why don’t you keep these. I handed her the cookies she indicated were her favorite.
The laugh and the smile that came from the mom was a mix of happiness and embarrassment. It was that was very nice and boy did I read you wrong. She might have been nervous if I offered the girl something from my pocket or if I had stayed, but I gave her cookies I bought from them and then left.
The 2006 health and human services child maltreatment report shows that mothers commit 70% of all child abuse (even when you include sexual) and 70% of all child slayings.
A substantial amount of abuse and slayings are done by both parents. However you split that difference though mothers always come out substantially higher than fathers.
@ Mike
“thought it was about 40%, have you got the reference for majority?”
Women commit the majority of child abuse with mothers perpetrating at about twice the rate of fathers.
“Women comprised a larger percentage of all unique perpetrators than men: 53.6 percent compared to 45.2 percent. “
http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/canstats.pdf#Page=4&view=Fit
“Nearly two-fifths (37.2%) of victims were maltreated by their mother acting alone. One-fifth (19.1%) of victims were maltreated by their father acting alone.”
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm10/cm10.pdf#page=31
Mothers perpetrate about double the child fatalities as fathers (359 to 170). Mothers and other (like boyfriends) perpetrate 5 times the number of child fatalities than a father with other (like girlfriend) at 119 to 19.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm08/table4_5.htm
“And I’m not entirely joking.”
I know, because you’re a sexist.
She seems to be okay with the situation in Syria:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asma_al-Assad#section_3
Notice that she is a completely modern woman.
As well, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, etc etc
Anna, you put far to many stereotypes. Yes there are guys out there who do bad stuff, but there are millions who dont hurt a fly. But I know, its not your fault, the visible few always gets more attention than the “gray” mass. And not to make a boysvsgirls issue, but the ethnical violence are carried out by both men and women. Its not just a guy thingy.
But beside that, if this thing, RapeX can save some women, then its welcome. But the only issue I have is what if the rapist check the woman inside? unless he is drunk or on drugs, rarely a man will penetrate a woman, withouth checking her first (like to see if shes wet, ect) and when he do find the device, then what? He may even kill her in rage. And what if a malevolent woman (or man) use this object to hurt a innocent man? this kind of women do exist and they are not rare either. She may be a manhater, or a psycho. She can use that as to hurt a guy and then get away with it.
I think we need to put ideological garbage aside, and examine this deepely all the possible use and the implication for both men and women.
“I suggest a curfew for all men; they should not be allowed to carry guns at any time and not allowed outside except in company of their mothers.
And I’m not entirely joking.”
The number of violent men compared to the number of men is quite small, yet you have few qualms with punishing all men. Women kill also, but I take it you find the amount acceptable.
John, Danny et all…regarding curfew on men – are you not aware that there is a virtual curfew on women going out alone day and night in many parts of the world?
And I do think something is wrong with the fact that men terrorize huge part of the human population. yes, they gun down other men ,too. Thank you for that observation, Jamesq.
‘ John, Danny et all…regarding curfew on men – are you not aware that there is a virtual curfew on women going out alone day and night in many parts of the world? ‘
And so do guys, and lot of guys gets also attacked. For me there is no difference between a woman who get hurt and a man who get hurt. There are all the same. But I know society think differently…
‘ And I do think something is wrong with the fact that men terrorize huge part of the human population. ‘
Correction, SOME men. Not all men. Lets stop the stupidity of stereotypes, shall we?
Blurpo, are you for real? For example, I am sure that not all Afghan men treat their women badly, but the system will not allow women to get a proper education or marry/or NOT marry at will! And that system is created and enforced by men!
What is it you do not get?
‘Blurpo, are you for real? For example, I am sure that not all Afghan men treat their women badly, but the system will not allow women to get a proper education or marry/or NOT marry at will! And that system is created and enforced by men!
What is it you do not get?’
Yes Anna im for real???? why do ask? O_o
Anyways, a system is a system. And its enforced by EVERYBODY. Not just men. And beside that I still see no difference between a man who suffer and a woman. And still you make gross generalizations, and please stop that. Generalization doesent help anybody and for the most cases are counterproductive, and derailing and borderline trolling (no im not accusing You to troll). SOME men and WOMEN do evil stuff, but that far from everybody, and thats has to be specified.
The topic isnt whos more or less evil, but that antirape thingy. Im only calling you because you made (perhaps uintentional) some gross generalizations. And thats it.
Fully aware of it and I’m also aware that treating men the same isn’t the solution. It’s the same reason why over on the post that JR Reed did about his experiences with taking his daughter shopping there wan’t anyone pushing for women to be treated with the same suspicion.
Just because bad things happen to women in one culture does not mean that it is OK for the same bad things to happen to men in this one. That is just reverse sexism. All violence against everyone needs to stop. it is not men vs women.
Also other cultures are complicated. I remember seeing a documentary about an Afghan woman’s rights activist. She said the three problems for women in Afghanistan are; The Americans, the Taliban and the Warlords. Once the Americans are gone, we will just have to deal with the warlords and the Taliban. There is only so much we can do for people in radically different cultures, because we don’t understand their situation.
Sorry, where did I advocate violence against men?
And regarding this Rape-x thing. I bet it was invented by someone who was hurting very badly. It is in my opinion not a solution. It can easily be used against the woman wearing it, she can get beaten up or killed by the infuriated would-be-rapist and also there are many other orifices to choose from.
@ Anna
I never said that you advocated violence against men (I know you’re not accusing me of such. It’s just a good place to put the comment and I think illustrates the problem that people have with your comment.), however, I believe that your statement devalued the lives of men as compared with those of women. You may be surprised, but when a woman kills, she chooses a male victim about 75% of the time. Women killed 405 men in 2010 according to the FBI uniform crime statistics.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl06.xls
When you argue (only partly jokingly) that men should have a curfew to protect women, but not conversely, it does seem to support the notion that you’re suggesting these 405 deaths were somehow less important than the women killed by men.
Would you advocate that women be banned from serving as correctional officers because they rape male prisoners at about four times the rate that male guards rape female prisoners according to Just Detention.
http://www.justdetention.org/en/listserv/2012/051712_2.aspx
Or serve as youth correctional officers because female guards rape incarcerated boys at a rate about 30 times higher than male guards rape incarcerated girls.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/reviewpanel/pdfs/panel_report_101014.pdf
Would you support limiting the cross gender supervision of both sexes? Why, women and girls get raped significantly less often in prison. Why would they need protection?
The circumcision rate of male infants is about 55% by some estimates. Even if you assume the high number of 1 in 4 girls will be the victim of a rape or attempted rape, over one half of all males will have sexual violence committed against them. It won’t just be attempted. Should mothers have to undergo female genital cutting without anesthesia before being allowed to put their sons through it?
All victims deserve justice. All people deserve to have their rights protected even if they’re men.
Are you really under the impression it is much better for men? Men are THE MOST AT RISK GROUP in regards to violence. Deaths from violence is 4x more likely for a male than a female, most violence is male-male. So whilst it’s true the majority of violence is perpetrated by men, it’s also true men are the majority of victims so the average guy who isn’t violent is in more danger than a woman in stranger-based violence.
The big difference is people try to become big brother to women more often, telling them not to go out, it’s unsafe etc, whilst men are expected to go out AND risk their life. Whenever a major war occurs, it’s men who are thrown first into the fire, INNOCENT MEN who don’t want to be violent but are often forced by conscription. The men in Syria, etc may not have a curfew but I’d guess they’re expected to grab guns to defend the place whilst women are protected far more, the male life being worth less.
Installing a curfew for men is silly since only a few men are truly violent, it’s as stupid as installing it for women due to some women also being violent.
Silly boy, there already IS a curfew in place for women!
it is called Sharia law. It is called ‘ don’t wear that short skirt, you only have yourself to blame if men ‘get the wrong idea” it is called ‘ Don’t walk home alone after dark, take a taxi’
And if men insist on killing each other – how do you blame this on women? You know, I agree with Bob Dylan (yes, he’s male) when he sang about the universal soldier. If it wasn’t for all these obedient little brainwashed boys, the world would be so much safer.
‘ If it wasn’t for all these obedient little brainwashed boys, the world would be so much safer. ‘
Some has no choice. Some are kidnapped from their villages as kids drugget and sent to war. Others who doesent follow wollingly are shot on the place. And what about female soldiers???
Ok I dont want to give you the impression im picking on you. Just wanted to specify.
*willingly, not wollingly…lol
Society is to blame. Women are not helpless little sheep with no influence. Who do you think raises those obedient lil soldiers you’re so fond of talking about?
@ Anna
“It is true that there are female soldiers and politicians, but the majority of rulers and people in power are male.”
“And if men insist on killing each other – how do you blame this on women?”
This is one of my pet peeves. I’ll often see people make both arguments in the same discussion. Women are the majority of the electorate in the United States. If men make up the majority of government officials in the United States than women are doing it to themselves so how can you blame the men It’s probably similar in every western democracy..
In India, at least one third of all local officials must be women by law. What kind of democracy is that?
I agree Archy, its the neighbour grass is greener syndrome. Anna points to the Sharia, but the sharia is there also for men. So we can see that its not a system enforced by a gender on another (simplicistic/box thinking), but a system who enforces everybody under ancient religious rules.
Its not so difficoult to understand actually. But to really grasp it, we should leave the word to muslems who understand better the culture. Because its to easy to value everything through western values and totally ignoring the local cultural reality. Lot of moslem women are actually offended when a “white boy or girl” start to slander their culture and religion. But what do I know.
@ Anna
“John, Danny et all…regarding curfew on men – are you not aware that there is a virtual curfew on women going out alone day and night in many parts of the world?”
It’s a self imposed curfew if it exists at all at least in the United States. I’ve been out to enough clubs to know that women go out at night without male escorts. If I’m too afraid to start my own business, can I claim to be a victim because I work for someone else? I’m half Asian. I grew up in a white neighborhood in the most racially segregated city in the United States. My friends and I knew we’d almost surely be at a numerical disadvantage in every fight we got in. It didn’t keep us indoors. We lifted weights and learned martial arts and went anywhere we damn well pleased.
Our reputation was such that when the local street gang wanted to recruit us they didn’t threaten to beat me up if I didn’t join, they sent three girls to recruit me. It was a good plan. Being half white, I wasn’t accepted at the Filipino clubs either so was a prime target, but it didn’t work. Life is full of risk and reward. In one match, I was kicked in the neck and couldn’t move half my body for about 15 seconds. I also got kicked in the face because I couldn’t move my arm to block it. That was irritating. Could I have gotten hurt? I sure could have, but it was a good experience and a nice skill to have.
“And I do think something is wrong with the fact that men terrorize huge part of the human population.”
When women talk about women’s rights in places like Saudi Arabia, they only look at the rights of Saudi women. What about the rights of the foreign workers, who are virtual slaves even of the Saudi women? Many of these domestic workers take care of household chores, which would seem to benefit women or are you now going to argue that Saudi men do the housework? It’s not like women haven’t reaped some benefit.
First off:
But still, it seems to me, that it is the men who are busy killing and terrorizing the rest of the world’s population (women and children) in wars and gang land violence.
The men are the ones busy killing? Where exactly do innocent men civilians fit into your categorization of the entire human race? Or do they simply not exist because they aren’t bad and non-bad men don’t exist? I can imagine someone thinking that since when it comes to reporting death tolls it’s apparently okay to only count the women and children.
It is true that there are female soldiers and politicians, but the majority of rulers and people in power are male.
So what does that have to do with the killing of innocent civilians? And more importantly are you saying this as an attempt to imply that since we share gender with them we have some sort of hook up connection? Yeah like we can call Obama’s personal cell and just tell him to do something about what’s going on over there or something.
Looking at Syria – which side of the conflict offers peace and protection for women, the old and children?
I don’t know but I hope that side also offers peace and protection for the innocent men civilians as well. Or are we back to them not mattering again because they aren’t evil?
I suggest a curfew for all men; they should not be allowed to carry guns at any time and not allowed outside except in company of their mothers. And I’m not entirely joking.
I would make me feel better if you were joking but considering that anti-male bias is pretty much an okay thing these days I can see aren’t. So I’ll ask if that also includes male public servants like cops and firefighters?
When Golda Meir was asked to place a curfew on women to help end a series of rapes, Meir replied by stating, “But it is the men who are attacking the women. If there is to be a curfew, let the men stay at home.”
I couldn’t agree with this logic more
‘ I couldn’t agree with this logic more ‘
Thats actually not logic, just idiocy.
Again, correlation not causation.
People, everyone here needs to go look up the difference between correlation and causation. Even in the best cases, it is a chicken-and-egg scenario. Men have been in power a long time in these nations, and men have been the ones fighting wars as long as history has documented wars. That does not mean men are *inherently* violent. It doesn’t mean they love war. It means that there are institutions and deep systems in place that *put men at war*.
That doesn’t mean women don’t suffer. Women suffer hugely, massively, in war. Beyond our Western comprehension. But men suffer hugely in war, too. Just because someone handed a 12 year old boy a gun and made him a combatant doesn’t mean his life would have always been violent. What if he had he received a scholarship instead of a kalashnikov?
These are systemic problems. Anyone who uses the men of Afghanistan or other nations as proof that men are violent is being simple-minded.
And the often forgotten part of war. It’s mostly for resources, for which men often gather FOR their families, including women. Women play a part in war, everyone does, it’s society that goes to war, not men….men are usually just the ones who do the fighting and a few get to choose on BEHALF of society when to goto war.
In Australia, the U.S, everywhere that has been colonized by outside invaders, everyone living after the invasion has benefitted by it. We get land, resources etc because the aboriginals of that land were no match to the English, etc. I guarantee that quite a lot of violence in our history stems from people trying to find, take over resources to raise their families. If you’re in a land that is starving, is overpopulated, etc, I guarantee some women will be telling their men to go find more resources as it’s the basis of survival. I’d say this happened more in the past whilst the world was still setting itself up, today we have a global calm compared to before I think although there are small wars that still burn on like wild grassfire…..I hope it doesn’t turn into a major inferno though.
The next major war the west will have, women had better prepare themselves because they’ll most likely get drafted too now. The barriers women face to fighting are now being largely overcome by technology, a few years/decades when exoskeletal suits (google them) come out and they equalize the load carrying capacity of men n women you can bet your left testicle/ovary/kidney that women will be conscripted if we have a shortage of soldiers.
“And the often forgotten part of war. It’s mostly for resources, for which men often gather FOR their families, including women.”
I’ve always thought that strange. Women will blame men for wars, but refuse to recognize how they benefited. If the European settlers stole the land from the Native Americans and that was a bad thing, why haven’t their descendents (meaning the people who decried the taking) returned the land and/or made restitution for the resources taken.?
Sex taken under threat of death is rape. Land taken by treaty under threat of death not so much, when one has personally benefited from the taking.
Going off topic for a bit.
People, everyone here needs to go look up the difference between correlation and causation. Even in the best cases, it is a chicken-and-egg scenario. Men have been in power a long time in these nations, and men have been the ones fighting wars as long as history has documented wars. That does not mean men are *inherently* violent. It doesn’t mean they love war. It means that there are institutions and deep systems in place that *put men at war*.
So how does this reminder play out in regards to the regular statement that “men are the ones with power”? For a long time nations have been run by a relatively few men and despite the damage they are doing to other men because they are men the line still goes that “men are the ones with power”. And this is being said at the same time as folks claim they are not casting men as a monolith and are just talking about the systems in place.
So which is it? Do men as a class have power over these systems or is it some men that have power over these systems? I know there is temptation to say that I’m hair splitting but I dare say that it’s not hair splitting when there is a back and forth game of saying I as a man have power and saying that they aren’t saying I have power just because I’m a man.
That doesn’t mean women don’t suffer. Women suffer hugely, massively, in war. Beyond our Western comprehension. But men suffer hugely in war, too. Just because someone handed a 12 year old boy a gun and made him a combatant doesn’t mean his life would have always been violent. What if he had he received a scholarship instead of a kalashnikov?
Agreed. Problem is that is not the way the situation is cast. Most folks are quick to forget that that 12 year old boy was very likely handed that kalashnikov over threat of being killed if he didn’t take it. No it’s all about how he is so violent and in a few years he will become what seems to be the only type of adult male that is acknowledged in those parts of the world, the male combatant.
That’s how we end up with death tolls of innocent civilian populations that only count “women and children”.
These are systemic problems. Anyone who uses the men of Afghanistan or other nations as proof that men are violent is being simple-minded.
Call it simple minded but it works. Like I said above what types of men are actually acknowledged in those parts of the world? When it comes to reporting on dead civilians it’s “women and children”. When it comes to reporting on the violent people that commit these horrible crimes all of a sudden there are plenty of pictures and things to say about the men in those regions. I’m sure someone would try to account for this by saying it happens that way because, “It’s men that are doing the violence.”….all the while magically forgetting that men are victims of the violence in those areas as well.
(Almost makes me wonder sometimes, do people report on this for the generic reason of, “These are horrible crimes and something needs to be done about them” or ‘These are horrible crimes against women and children and something needs to be done about them”.)
Anna,
You are being overly selective in your statistics.
Are the majority of politicians male? Sure. But the majority of the homeless are also male. The majority of th victims of violence in most countries are ALSO male (men 15-25 have always been the most murdered group). Meanwhile women enjoy almost universally longer life expectancies no matter where you look.
Because you are defining power so narrowly, you are only seeing the result that you want to see. Your biases feed your definitions, which then reinforce your biases.
If I see two groups, one of which is disproportionately homeless, murdered, incarcerated, mentally ill, and dying 10 years younger than the other group, it is very difficult to claim that group is truly “in power.”
By focusing on titles or politics you ignore the reality of human power dynamics, including the importance of “soft power.” if women don’t really wield power, then why do we see programs for the poor such as WIC, whose very name “Women, Infants, Children” tells you men aren’t getting any help?
Think about a situation like the UK, where someone does hold the title “Queen” but is ultimately powerless in determining how society functions. An uninformed observer could easily say “But there’s a queen, she must be in power!” and yet they would be completely wrong. By focusing on who is a “politician” but then ignoring life expectancy, homelessness, incarceration rates, violent crime victimization rates, etc. you are making the exact same mistake by assuming men “hold all the power.”
Mike L
The stereotype of a ‘strong’, man is for instance James Bond, a man equipped to kill, seduce and save the world.
The definition of a ‘strong’ woman ( still talking in bumper stickers) is someone who nurtures and feeds and heals. Most ‘strong’ women are anonymous, a salt of the earth character, our mothers and grandmothers.
So we have two archetypes, the strong male who defends and kills. And
the nurturing female, who gives life.
Do you still not see my point?
Killing is regarded as more ‘powerful’ than giving life. How did this happen?
Anna,
I am talking about the real world (seriously, look up homelessness rates, life expectancies, etc.) and you are talking about stereotypes.
If you cannot understand why working with stereotypes and ignoring statistics is inherently problematic, then I cannot help you.
The real world is built on accepted values. The prevailing values in the Muslim, Jewish and Christian societies are that strong equals the capacity for violence and killing. Just look up the ‘statistics’ of Hollywood movies or popular books, computer games etc. The same men who advocate dying as an act of patriotism also write sentimental elegies about the horrors of war.
Go figure.
Strange Anna,
You embrace these stereotypes (clinging hard) when they make your point.
Once again, you’re ignoring the 98% of men who realize these are works of fiction and have never harmed anybody, except self-defense.
You continue to ignore the billions of men who break your stereotype by never committing violence and even self-sacrifice for their families (95% of on-the-job deaths are men) or for complete strangers (99% of volunteer firefighters are men).
The truth of the matter is that the good that men do, vastly vastly overwhelms the bad that men do. But, you prefer to see the tip of the iceberg and not talk about the 95% of the iceberg that’s buried underwater that deals with pacifist men (like Nelson Mandella and Martin Luther King).
There are many dozens of times over examples of heroic men vs dastardly men. And the 96% of men reside somewhere in between from ahole to hard-working self-sacrificing good guys.
You really need to get out of your echo chambers more, and start realizing that men are people too and your stereotypes have no role in this discussion and will be labeled as the total horse crap that they are.
Men are not devils, and women are certainly no angels. Women are down here in the fugly muck of humanity.
Anna,
Your argument does not make sense.
As popularly discussed here and elsewhere, the US is built on the “accepted value” that hard work is all it takes to succeed. Yet time and again we see that factors beyond “hard work,” such as being born to a poor single mother in the inner city, actually have a profound impact on success.
When you substitute stereotypes for the real world then you miss these things. This is a fundamental error, and you are making the same mistake in your analysis of men and power.
‘ The real world is built on accepted values. The prevailing values in the Muslim, Jewish and Christian societies are that strong equals the capacity for violence and killing. Just look up the ‘statistics’ of Hollywood movies or popular books, computer games etc. The same men who advocate dying as an act of patriotism also write sentimental elegies about the horrors of war.
Go figure. ‘
Reality check, let me go out and kill few random people and tell me what happens: will I get arrested and spent the rest of my life behind bars (or get executed) or will I get a gold medal? you tell me.
you forgot to add that majority of violent crimes is done by males… one musnt accuse another of selectivism if they are not willing to hold up to their own standards.
I do not understand your comment, I never suggested that men were not responsible for violence.
But we also need to ask who benefits.
When the girlfriend of a man who deals drugs benefits from his income, she is complicit in the violence that he uses in the course of his dealings. Yet we point at him and say “You cause violence,” without also looking at her and saying “You benefit from violence directed at men.”
“it could also be used by vindictive women to punish partners for whatever wrongdoing they decide merits some phallic mangling as retribution.”
I think this is quite possible and probably more likely than catching rapists, but my first thought was what if she forgot it was in there. My second thought was wouldn’t rapists just start turning them around. There’s more than one point of entry.
‘ but my first thought was what if she forgot it was in there ‘
I dont think its likely, but would you not feel it, when you caress the woman down below? Or do you go directly to action?
“I dont think its likely, but would you not feel it, when you caress the woman down below? Or do you go directly to action?”
I’d kind of like to not feel it. My philosophy is to get her hers first so I’d probably see it, but I suspect that some guys don’t operate that way.
‘get her hers first ‘
Im not a English speaker so I am a bit confused by this? do you mean, you go straight to action or oral? Anyways nevermind. Its none of my business. Ok, im more for long foreplays, but we are fortunately all different.
When I first read about this in 2010, I was pretty aghast because I feared that innocent men could have the double whammy of being attacked and also branded a rapist. The… Strong reaction I got to my opinion was what made me realize that I needed to think more deeply about women and feminism.
Ultimately I think the biggest problem is its impracticality, and if it was actually implemented it would lead to an escalation of violence in rape.
As well, I think that it shows a cultural difference. In South Africa, rape is more commonly commited by strangers, whereas in other countries the rapist in the alley is less common than acquaintance rape, and I wonder about its efficacy in that case.
Ive heard that the most effective tool against stranger rape is a loud noise. I still think that’s the case.
I think this device is a reaction to a situation which most of us can barely imagine — a society where violent gang rape has become so common that many women have experienced it not just once but multiple times in their lives, from what I’ve read. Where women live in fear of gang rape constantly because it is happening all around them, and to them, constantly, and there is little they can do about it. Women have to leave their homes and walk to work, to get food, to get water, etc. Their husbands and fathers and brothers are off somewhere else working or in prison or engaged in crimnal activities or dead of HIV. I think it is a sign of South African women’s frustration, hopelesness, and desire to strike back. I don’t see a device like this ever being used in the U.S. where even though women fear rape, it is certainly not a daily occurrence and we have other things we can do to mitigate our risk, such as avoiding dangerous situations where we are isolated and far from help. Most of us have cars or at least access to reliable public transportation, we don’t have to walk 5 miles every day to work through isolated rural areas or dangerous slums, we have cell phones to call the police and police will respond, and so on. Even in impoverished places in the U.S., I don’t think gang rape has become a daily occurrence. It certainly exists but not to the extent we are talking about in South Africa. Actuallt rapes in the U.S. are not committed by strangers but by acquaintenances or family members.
Sorry, meant to type “MOST rapes in the U.S. are committed by acquaintances…”
I think you’ve hit he nail on the head.
I realize that this is dangerous territory I’m treading on, But I think for many North American men there is an anxiety that their actions could be misconstrued as rape, that they might not be able to stop. I don’t think this is a conscious fear, but it gets represented as men being “slave to their hormones.”" If I’m off base here, I apologize.
i think people should keep in mind that this device was not invented as a response to “date rape” or sexual encounters where consent is ambiguous or could be misconstrued (e.g. drunken hookups), it was invented in response to an epidemic if violent gang rape in Africa where groups of men go around with the express intention of attacking and raping women as a kind of recreational activity. That said, apparently the device has never been manufactured or sold.
No, i understood that.
I still think, however, that most sane men have what can only be described as a fear of raping someone, or being seen as a rapist. Does that make any sense?
yes, that makes sense , although it does surprise me if it’s true that mist men fear being inadvertent rapists — just in my person experience , most men don ‘t seem to be afraid of pushing to get sex. I don’t mean they are “rapists” — not at all — but most guys I’ve dated or hung around with have been willing to be assertive when they want sex. Of course that doesn’t mean they aren’t also afraid of being a rapist, just that they haven’t given me any indication of that fear.
I’ll tell you an experience that I just had a few nights ago. I had a friend over and we were watching movies and we started cuddling. Later in the night I had my hand around her should and she takes it and puts is right in the middle of her chest.
I freak out a bit and say, “Let me know if I’m doing something you don’t approve of.” Her reply.
“I put your hand there didn’t I?”
Of course that doesn’t mean they aren’t also afraid of being a rapist, just that they haven’t given me any indication of that fear.
Have any of those guys ever been anywhere near a sexual situation with you?
Also bear in mind that part of what keeps guys from speaking up about this fear is that it goes against the expectation that we are supposed to be assertive about sex.
‘ yes, that makes sense , although it does surprise me if it’s true that mist men fear being inadvertent rapists — just in my person experience , most men don ‘t seem to be afraid of pushing to get sex. I don’t mean they are “rapists” — not at all — but most guys I’ve dated or hung around with have been willing to be assertive when they want sex. Of course that doesn’t mean they aren’t also afraid of being a rapist, just that they haven’t given me any indication of that fear. ‘
Have you tryed asking them directly?
The word “willing” can imply that they want to. I am not certain if that was an implication you wanted to make, but I just want to point out that it’s pretty much expected from guys and we’re told constantly that we have to be assertive to get sex (not only by other men, but also by women and not the least as a consequence of women being told constantly that they shouldn’t want sex/be assertive about sex). That doesn’t necessarily mean that those who are assertive really want to be assertive.
I personally never initiated anything sexual out of fear that it would be unwelcome or that it would transgress her boundaries. I’ve been asked afterwards by women why I didn’t make a move and once I was told by a woman that I really should’ve had sex with her that time a few years earlier. “You did say to me that we shouldn’t do anything more after we kissed”(which she initiated) I answered. And she answered that I should have done it regardless because she really wanted me to do so. Sorry, when you say no it’s no I replied and quickly quenched any idea of rekindling anything with her. So the CK Louis joke many have seen are something many men have experienced to some degree. And for many it reinforces the idea that men must be assertive and take the risk of the advance to be unwelcome at best.
There have been many advances that were intended for one purpose and twisted toward some other use. If it’s never gone into production, it can’t be considered an advance. Is it simply a wish or is she perhaps sparking an idea for an intrepid inventor.
Assuming that “gang rape” means more than one attacker/rapist is present, that makes this invention’s prospects even worse if it’s intended for use where that’s the common threat. One of the perks is supposed to be incapacitating the rapist long enough to give an opportunity to escape, so that’s nullified if other attackers are present. On top of which, there’s the already-mention risk of greater violence in retaliation, which seems much more likely with a bunch of non-affected attackers standing by.
As you said, though, and I think it’s worth mentioning again, I haven’t seen any evidence of the device being manufactured, sold, or even demonstrated beyond a prototype being modeled on an artificial penis. I don’t know how tough it is to get approval for something like this in South Africa, but given how it’s “worn” I would think some minimal testing would have to be done to show it’s safe just walk around with, and I haven’t seen anyone mention that kind of testing, either. Anyone who knows otherwise, please feel free to cite, but as far as I can tell a few prototypes that appeared in or since 2005 are the extent of how far the invention got, which is why I regard it as primarily art, and not a prototype with serious commercial potential.
No it doesn’t seem effective to me at all for a myriad of reasons. I think the inventor may have been hoping that its existence would just be a deterrent.
I took a women’s self-defense class years ago and they did not recommend carrying weapons because it is to easy to lose control of a weapon and have it turned against you. The best self defense we learned was avoiding unsafe situations, trusting your instincts, and making a huge amount of noise if attacked, with the idea that either help will arrive, you can quickly get free and run away, or the attacker will run away. Of course this all assumes you live in a society where you can avoid unsafe places, where there is somewhere safe to run to, and where help is readily available. None of that exists in many parts of the world.
The actual self defense techniques they taught us, like foot stomping or eye gouging, never struck me as being particularly effective against a determined attacker, especially not one with a weapon.
What would help the most is to find out why ANY violence there happens. There are wars, warlords running the show so a stable government free from corruption needs to be put in place. Once a stable government is in you need a stable society, one that isn’t in conflict all the damn time, and then you can start to get the equality messages spread and hopefully get both men n women to stop harming each other or at least lower it. Rape isn’t anything special in wartorn countries, there is bad shit going on EVERYWHERE, rape, torture, killings, etc. I remember a quote that basically said the soldiers would come in, line up the men n kill them whilst taking the women n children to do with whatever. Tackling rape alone I doubt will work, you need to tackle violence overall.
ht tp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9296135/Syria-using-rape-as-weapon-against-opposition-women-and-men.html
“Security forces in Syria are using rape against both men and women as a tool to spread fear among the opposition, victims and human rights groups have told the Daily Telegraph. ”
Rape here is being used as a weapon so to prevent it you need a stable government in the area who is also decent, along with a decent police force and laws to protect people from rape.
The rape-x device is a good way to show the fear, a good art piece but I doubt it will be at all effective. Giving the women a gun will probably help more but even then you have issues with the weapon being used for offense instead of defense.
Possibly the only fix to reduce the violence is for one of the warring factions to win and have a time of relative peace, for peace talks to work and everyone gets alone, or for an outside faction (UN, etc) to come in and take control by force. It’d be great to educate against rape there but in a time of conflict, will it really work? Equality and safety is a luxury of PEACE, war is hell.
@ Sarah
“The actual self defense techniques they taught us, like foot stomping or eye gouging, never struck me as being particularly effective against a determined attacker, especially not one with a weapon.”
I saw a woman’s self defense class once. It was held in my high school lunch room and I wasn’t impressed with the self defense techniques taught. I’m convinced that they were intended to make women feel that they could defend themselves somewhat at least to the point where they could get away. You know, give them confidence.
I was the attacker in a women’s self defense class once (Sa Bam Nim heard that I was LMAO during the women’s self defense class so I got volunteered as punishment) and they were teaching them how to throw a guy. If I didn’t let myself get thrown, they would have never taken me over and I’d probably be doing knuckle push ups for a while.
Sarah, agreed.
My cynical thought as for why the Rape X wouldn’t be effective? Because anyone sociopathic enough to rape as the folks are raping in SA could go anally or orally or use a gun or object to hurt the woman. Or utilize a child or sibling or parent against her. Or check between her legs. Any victim would basically need some kind of shock field surrounding the body to keep people away on every level, given the amount of creativity people put into assaulting others.
This is a pathology there (in SA and in areas where this level of rape is occurring) of gargantuan levels. A nasty device like that won’t do jack.
The article I’d like to see, instead of one that just makes men decide women are misandrist for doing something to try to avoid the pathology, is what the fucking fuck is going on that’s allowing for or causing such violence to occur. Cultural shifts? Religion? Race tensions? Poverty? What caused it? How do we keep it from happening in other places? What can we do to help support real change? What does desperation look like to the people who actually designed something like this? To design this seems born of such fear and desperation that I can’t quite fathom how bad it is, and I’ve read things that have given me nightmares.
This doesn’t even touch on the devastation male victims of rape during war time crises (Rwanda and more) have experienced.
Figuring those things out might get to the point of weeding out the violence and figuring out how to help people live more peacefully.
I’m not skilled enough to write that article, but I figure it’s an article or series that would do some good, or I hope it would, rather then getting people all riled up and spewing about how women hate men or how men are all rapists because neither pole is true. The majority of men and women don’t do this to each other. The majority of men and women don’t want this level of violence and torture in their lives.
That an object like this exists is an indicator of something so out of balance that that’s what we should be recognizing and working on. That people are facebooking it and making callous commentary there? Only shows how extremely out of connection to the actual issues we are.
People are facebooking while Rome burns these days, so I’m not surprised.
I’m not qualified to write that article, either, being just a guy with opinions and a keyboard, not a journalist or academic. I hope, however, you didn’t consider this article one of those riling up, spewing types that’s calling women misandrist for doing something about the pathology of rape. Maybe you didn’t, but I couldn’t tell.
My goal here was to express both understanding about why so many people’s first response when seeing this is that it’s “doing something” about rape, and my reasons for why I don’t thing *this* thing would actually do anything about rape. Arguing that it’s ineffective is not the same as arguing that rape isn’t a problem (in S. Africa or anywhere else), and on the flip side, I keep reminding myself that arguing that it’s the best invention since sliced bread is not the same as saying all men deserve to feel its bite.
Marcus’ article was pretty balanced. He didn’t make an article with an aim toward pointing out that women are misandrist. One or two misogynistic woman-fearing men in these comments did.
Marcus is dead right on all accounts in this article, as are you, Julie.
This rape-X device is an important piece of art, as Marcus says. It’s something to help people imagine a way to protect themselves but it will never actually protect anyone. If he puts his penis inside her to get this thing stuck, she’s already been raped. Perhaps not as deeply, but my guess is that the violence would just continue.
This is like handing someone a Tylenol after they know they’re dying of a brain tumor. “Swallow these pills, be pacified”… Truth is, there is a massive cancer on our world – rape. It harms children, women and men. It kills people, many people. It is a tool of war and of oppression.
It is also an unintended consequence of a lack of understanding about sexuality and boundaries. It is a side-effect of a fucked up society where sexuality is both glorified and obsessed over, at the same time that it is demonized and hidden.
This tool gets us talking about rape, and that’s about the best it can do.
I don’t think she intended it as art. She tried to distribute the durin h Wold Cup.
I don’t think the inventor intended it as art, either, but given it’s lack of commercial potential, I still think that’s the most accurate way to categorize it, based on the strong reactions it has provoked just from seeing a picture and/or reading a description of what it does.
I hadn’t heard of any attempted distribution, but I’d be interested to read more if you can dig up a citation. If she did, I’m really curious whether and how it was tested for safety first, since it would seem recklessly dangerous to just start distributing them without showing them to be safe (to the wearer) for use.
So for all of human history men have carried a deadly weapon in their pants, and the minute we get something that barely evens the odds, that damages but cannot kill, guys are freaked out. How guys feel when they see that device, the fear that a sexual encounter could end in bodily harm, is how we feel all the time.”
While I don’t want to try to tell this woman how to feel about penises I have to say that as a person with a penis I’ve grown rather tired of the actions of a small portion of penis owners being used as a justification to blanketly declare the penis as a deadly weapon.
And for the record I don’t feel this “fear that a sexual encounter could end in bodily harm” in the sense of it hurting me myself (but hey I’m a guy so supposedly I only think of myself first all the time right?) No what I feel is this.
If women were to start using these devices my first thought is that rapists would cover their bases by using a foreign object before using their own penis. It’s my understanding that this thing would only latch onto the first thing that goes in and would get stuck to that one first thing. So what’s to stop a rapist from forcing something in first to catch it and then once its pulled out proceed with the original plan?
If such a device came into regular use by women my first worry would be a sharp increase in the number of rapes that would include use of a foreign object before penile penetration.
Would your reaction be similar to some kind of anti-rape-by-envelopment device, like a weaponized cock ring, or is there something special about the anti-penis kind of device?
An anti-female-against-male rape device (for the penis at least) would be harder to implement due to fact that we don’t just walk around with erections all the time. And of course I can already imagine the “but it doesn’t happen as often as male against female rape!” (or some similar ‘what about teh wimminz’ chirping) crowd chiming in about how that would be wasted resources, male privilege, or something else.
‘ An anti-female-against-male rape device (for the penis at least) would be harder to implement due to fact that we don’t just walk around with erections all the time. And of course I can already imagine the “but it doesn’t happen as often as male against female rape!” (or some similar ‘what about teh wimminz’ chirping) crowd chiming in about how that would be wasted resources, male privilege, or something else. ‘
Oh my god, im so tired hearing this especially from people who deal with this stuff. IMO who employ this meme, is better suited to make icecrams rather than working in this field.
How often a B747 crashes down? it happens but not so often as a car crash. Should we ignore all the air disaster just because it doesent happen so often? This line of though is destructive that it overlaps with stupid. And im surprise that it is used also by people who deal with rape. Yes its right, the mother of the fools is always pregnant.
Most men are raped by other men. so Logically it’d be more productive for men to creat a device to use to protect themselves against other men.
Not true. Per the latest CDC report on intimate partner violence, when the definition of rape is expanded to include men “being forced to penetrate” somebody else, men are raped almost as much as women, and 80% of the time in which they are forced to penetrate somebody a woman is the assailant.
Most men are raped by women, if you include women forcing men to penetrate them as rape. It’s a bias in the definition which shows men “rape more” because the majority of female sexual abuse against men is ignored in the definition.
‘ So for all of human history men have carried a deadly weapon in their pants, and the minute we get something that barely evens the odds, that damages but cannot kill, guys are freaked out. ‘
Correction, a penis is not a weapon. Its just a penis. Nothing more nothing less….
yea and a gun is just a gun not a weapon
I read an article in which a woman tore off a mans testicles with her bare hands (she was angry he turned her down for sex). Does that mean women have also walked around with weapons for all of human history, or (like the quote) would I be using hyperbole to make a false point?
Wow. This is one cheerful page. Yikes.
I just want to point out that to claim this could be used as a weapon against an innocent man in the case of a vengeful wife is a rather weak argument. Any person who is willing to harm another human being in such a manner already has problems, and a woman who truly wants to cause harm is going to cause harm whether or not this thing exists. If not this, then a knife or scissors or something else.
It’s not a weak argument, it’s just another potential tool in the arsenal of weapons people can use against each other.
The difference is that this will deflect blame and cast the man as rapist instead of the woman as an assailant (if a different mode of attack was used).
I’m going to throw somethine else out here, and see what people think:
I think that most men have no comprehension of the idea that their genitalia can be a weapon (the phallicness of guns notwithstanding) and are rather repulsed by the idea. Again, am I off base here?
Rapists probably think of their penises as weapons, but most men, probably not.
I can’t remember where I read it, but there was some study that shows that rapists think that all men are rapists….
(the phallicness of guns notwithstanding)
I’ve been finding the implications of the shape of weapons to be a bit stretching these days. Like folks are supposed to believe that physics and efficiency of killing people took a backseat to a phallic shape when these weapons were first developed. Guns don’t have barrels in order to guide the bullet for accuracy, no they have barrels because gun barrels are shaped like penises.
I think that most men have no comprehension of the idea that their genitalia can be a weapon (the phallicness of guns notwithstanding) and are rather repulsed by the idea. Again, am I off base here?
Probably not and honestly I don’t blame them for being repulsed. A small portion of men using their penis in such a manner doesn’t justify the idea that the penis should be treated like a weapon.
This would be a reasonable device if we can guarantee that they will be used as intended, but I can’t help but think the potential to abuse this device is just too high.
Though I empathise that the woman fears rape (don’t we all), her explanation that men have a ‘weapon in their pants’ and the barbed device puts women on ‘equal footing’ with men in this aspect is just not so, a penis is not exactly weaponistic, it’s very fragile, committing rape has a very high chance of the perpetrator’s genitals being cut, torn, bruised and diseased, more so if they’re a man, because male genitalia has a way of dangling or sticking out rather precariously.
I’m with Sarah. But my fear would be that, if used in the US, the successful lawsuits rapists would bring, based on the legal concept of not settng traps for criminals. It would almost certainly be illegal here.
A number of commenters have reacted strongly to the part I quoted from a rape victim, but I’m afraid I may have understated the context as I understood it, so let me try again, adding emphasis to the original quote’s setup:
Her raw reaction. I don’t know this person real well, but from what little other discussion I’ve had with her, she does not strike me as someone who goes around thinking every penis is a weapon and hating everyone who has one. However, her rape wasn’t “just” a rape (if there is such a thing), but one that resulted in severe vaginal and abdominal injuries, so it is entirely rational, given her specific experience, to regard the penis used against her as a “deadly weapon”. This doesn’t make all penises deadly weapons, and when she’s having a considered reaction, rather than sharing a raw one in a moment of vulnerability and trust, I think she would agree. In fact, I know she does, because she told me how fond she is of her boyfriend’s.
I don’t have to agree that penises are weapons to sympathize with how they could be regarded as such, just like I don’t have to agree that all hammers are weapons to understand why someone who has been attacked with one would *reflexively* react to a raised hammer like it’s more a weapon than a tool.
Having seen a handful of discussions about this invention now by different groups of people, I’m struck by how much agreement there usually is that goes unnoticed (or unmentioned). It’s not unanimous, but for the most part, even women who respond vigorously to the *why* of this invention concede or even argue that it wouldn’t work well; and even men who respond vigorously to all the reasons it wouldn’t work express some empathy about the problem of rape and what inspired this invention. Given the different emphases of what each considers the “most important part”, though, it’s easy to overlook all that agreement going on.
Everyone here probably knows that Marcus and I are good friends. But you might not know that we disagree as much as we agree on almost anything relating to social issues.
In this case, Marcus has made me cry with relief at his understanding and empathy for the experiences of survivors. Here are two crucial points I hope nobody overlooks:
and
YES, almost everyone agrees. And yet we’re so conditioned to think that the other is attacking and trying to harm us, that we can’t even see the agreement.
Marcus,
I appreciate what you are saying about a “raw” reaction.
Yet I see “raw” reactions get condemned all of the time. Joanna herself stated that she has “raw” reactions to people of certain European nationalities, and she acknowledges those reactions are incorrect and she needs to work on them (source: http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/can-hipsters-be-racists-too/ ).
This seems little different: she had a REALLY TERRIBLE experience, no one has claimed otherwise (despite Joanna’s attempts to misconstrue my statements). It is completely understandable that she would have a certain raw reaction as a result of that experience.
But guess what: the raw reaction is STILL WRONG. It may be understandable, but it also needs to be called out.
If an Asian guy mugs me at gunpoint, I might begin to flinch whenever an Asian guy near me reaches into his jacket. This would be understandable. It would also be something that I need to work on, and certainly not a reasonable basis to draw conclusions from. If I went around conducting policy analysis based on this flinch, my conclusions would be flawed, and they should be rightly identified as such.
The complaints upthread are not about the reaction of the anonymous victim to an image of a penis. They are a reaction to the viewpoint that men are inherently dangerous. This may be a “raw reaction” but for many people, so is the idea that members of a particular race are inherently dangerous; it’s still a bad idea and needs to be identified as such.
Mike L,
I tried to address this somewhat above (see my comment @ August 7, 2012 at 1:13 pm), but I think you’re assuming the quoted victim never processed that feeling any further than the quoted bit. That would be like someone telling me (in a blog) they saw you flinch around an Asian guy, and me automatically “calling you out” for your racism even though subsequent to the flinch, your rational mind kicked in and stopped you from drawing racist conclusions, thanks to having enough self-awareness to know it’s something you need to work on. It would be a wild leap to think your racial flinch – which isn’t really under your control – was the basis for conducting policy analysis.
I don’t think there is nothing inherently wrong with feeling a raw reaction. It’s the conclusions drawn from those raw reactions that may become problematic.
In my time here at GMP I’ve seen plenty of times where people have expressed raw reactions and conclusions drawn from them, just to have people call them on the conclusions.
To use myself as an example I’ve been dog plied and attacked by feminists on various forums in the last few years. As a result I developed a raw reaction at the thought of dealing with them. Since then there has been no shortage of feminists that have tripped over themselves to tell me something to the effect of “I understand why you feel this way BUT it’s not right to just blanketly assume worst faith in all feminists just because of the ones that treated you like shit.” (In fact I want to say that Joanna has said almost those exact words to me.) And some of them even manage to point out that we (myself and a lot of feminists) agree on a lot of issues and topics.
What conclusions? Take this by lil bit upthread:
When Golda Meir was asked to place a curfew on women to help end a series of rapes, Meir replied by stating, “But it is the men who are attacking the women. If there is to be a curfew, let the men stay at home.”
I couldn’t agree with this logic more
I’ll be the first to agree that keeping women bound to a curfew is not right. But at the same time we are supposed to believe that it is a good idea to just indirectly brand all men as rapists by imposing a curfew on all of them when its only a small portion of them that are responsible for the rapes? I’m all for the “raw reaction” of wanting to take swift and decisive action to do something about rape. But that doesn’t equate to a blank check to start basing policy on the presumption of worst faith in men (that would be the conclusion drawn from the raw reaction).
I was the first one to say something about the “men have carried a deadly weapon in their pants” and I’ll just re-iterate that even though I very well understand where it comes from when it’s a victim saying it I am not obligated to like it.
It is also a notion not only held by victims – it’s also commonly used in PSA about safe sex:
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/06/18/safer-sex-psas-conflate-the-penis-with-a-firearm/
http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=71770
Sociological Pages likens those with the WWII posters which personified sexually transmitted diseases as women.
And then we have insanity like this: http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=71770