The worst thing you’ll read all day…

[TW FOR RAPE CULTURE AND GENERAL DOUCHEBAGGERY]

Once again an idiotic college student has brought shame on his fraternity, his school, and possibly the entire Greek system by doing something that confirms every misogynistic frat guy stereotype. Today we received a copy of a an email purportedly written by a member of USC’s Kappa Sigma chapter, in which he offers a treatise on how to be an effective “cocksman” (how creative). Disgust ensues.

Here’s the email that went out to his fraternity brothers:

To the Distinguished Gentlemen of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity:

As I have mentioned I will be starting a weekly Gullet Report. In response to the Soft Report, I felt it necessary to offer a contrasting and more uplifting telegram. My theories and practices are elaborated in more detail in the body of this email.

Please send me all of your hook-ups in Tucker Max format (for those unfamiliar with this legend, google will suffice). These renditions should be elaborate and interesting. I want raw data on who fucks and who doesn’t. In conclusion the gullet report will strengthen brotherhood and help pin-point sorostitiutes more inclined to put-out. From my experience when a female goes Ksig shes typically repeats.

For your entertainment read on and pause for note taking. My hope is that ALL of our brothers will follow this creed with pride and distinction.

I have come to write this memo to you today to educate on the only life worth living, that of a Cocksman. A Cocksman is taught to live by the two most applicable principles I know: The Pie and the Gullet. You may already be lost in trying to comprehend this logic. Do not worry this is completely understandable. By the end of this memo, you will not only gain a greater understanding of what it means to live, but you will have embraced a lifestyle. However, in order for this to happen you first must know a couple key terms.

Note: I will refer to females as “targets”. They aren’t actual people like us men. Consequently, giving them a certain name or distinction is pointless.

Schrödinger’s Rapist – A guide for the Men.

     This is a compete repost of what guest blogger Starling on Shapely Prose,  says about our rape culture and how it works for the people who have no choice but to live within its confines.    This is a “S2″ moment, as in Sit the frack down and Shut the frack up.

This is how it works out there.  Starling writes with brilliant clarity on a topic that troubles me greatly, she lays down exactly what being female is in our culture, exposing the double standards, patriarchy, and rape culture that are inherent in our society.

You do not want to be part of the problem, so don’t be that guy or girl who glosses over someones “personal problems” or laughs at a rape joke or endorses the other 101 quadrillion bits of misogyny that passes as humour these days.  Problems are not fixed by ignoring them.  Not taking personal responsibility for making the society you live in safer is a shitty thing to do.   So don’t be that person.

Read on.

Phaedra Starling is the pen name of a romance novelist and licensed private investigator living in small New York City apartment with two large dogs.  She practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu and makes world-class apricot muffins.

Gentlemen. Thank you for reading.

Let me start out by assuring you that I understand you are a good sort of person. You are kind to children and animals. You respect the elderly. You donate to charity. You tell jokes without laughing at your own punchlines. You respect women. You like women. In fact, you would really like to have a mutually respectful and loving sexual relationship with a woman. Unfortunately, you don’t yet know that woman—she isn’t working with you, nor have you been introduced through mutual friends or drawn to the same activities. So you must look further afield to encounter her.

So far, so good. Miss LonelyHearts, your humble instructor, approves. Human connection, love, romance: there is nothing wrong with these yearnings.

Now, you want to become acquainted with a woman you see in public. The first thing you need to understand is that women are dealing with a set of challenges and concerns that are strange to you, a man. To begin with, we would rather not be killed or otherwise violently assaulted.

“But wait! I don’t want that, either!”

Well, no. But do you think about it all the time? Is preventing violent assault or murder part of your daily routine, rather than merely something you do when you venture into war zones? Because, for women, it is. When I go on a date, I always leave the man’s full name and contact information written next to my computer monitor. This is so the cops can find my body if I go missing. My best friend will call or e-mail me the next morning, and I must answer that call or e-mail before noon-ish, or she begins to worry. If she doesn’t hear from me by three or so, she’ll call the police. My activities after dark are curtailed. Unless I am in a densely-occupied, well-lit space, I won’t go out alone. Even then, I prefer to have a friend or two, or my dogs, with me. Do you follow rules like these?

So when you, a stranger, approach me, I have to ask myself: Will this man rape me?

Do you think I’m overreacting? One in every six American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. I bet you don’t think you know any rapists, but consider the sheer number of rapes that must occur. These rapes are not all committed by Phillip Garrido, Brian David Mitchell, or other members of the Brotherhood of Scary Hair and Homemade Religion. While you may assume that none of the men you know are rapists, I can assure you that at least one is. Consider: if every rapist commits an average of ten rapes (a horrifying number, isn’t it?) then the concentration of rapists in the population is still a little over one in sixty. That means four in my graduating class in high school. One among my coworkers. One in the subway car at rush hour. Eleven who work out at my gym. How do I know that you, the nice guy who wants nothing more than companionship and True Love, are not this rapist?

I don’t.

When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape. I won’t know for sure unless you start sexually assaulting me. I can’t see inside your head, and I don’t know your intentions. If you expect me to trust you—to accept you at face value as a nice sort of guy—you are not only failing to respect my reasonable caution, you are being cavalier about my personal safety.

Fortunately, you’re a good guy. We’ve already established that. Now that you’re aware that there’s a problem, you are going to go out of your way to fix it, and to make the women with whom you interact feel as safe as possible.

To begin with, you must accept that I set my own risk tolerance.

The Monday Morning Misogyny – Marilyn Monroe

Of all the women and all the poses that are available *this* one gets the attention.  Of course it is rape culture double thumbs up approved so its all good.

*sigh*

Still so much work to do…

 

Rape. – It Must have been “Sex in the Air”

Just a reminder to the wimmenz, your “NO” is really just a yes in disguise and yes, how you dress will make you rape worthy or not. Attitudes from the 50′s?  Hell no, here in the 21st century we have misogyny blooming in full masculine glory, and we should rejoice! (?)

“A convicted rapist will not go to jail because a Manitoba judge says the victim sent signals that “sex was in the air” through her suggestive attire and flirtatious conduct on the night of the attack.”

Are you kidding me?  But it gets better.

“Kenneth Rhodes was given a two-year conditional sentence last week which allows him to remain free in the community, in a decision likely to trigger strong debate. The Crown wanted at least three years behind bars.”

Sir…Sir!  Please hold out your wrist…fetch the wet noodle.   *whap*  You Sir have been punished!

“Rhodes and a friend met the 26-year-old woman and her girlfriend earlier that night outside a bar under what the judge called “inviting circumstances.” Dewar specifically noted the women were wearing tube tops with no bra, high heels and plenty of makeup.

Which really means: ignore everything I say and stick your penis in my vagina.

“They made their intentions publicly known that they wanted to party,” said Dewar. He said the women spoke of going swimming in a nearby lake that night “notwithstanding the fact neither of them had a bathing suit.”

Holy Frak!  These sluts were asking for it!

“The foursome left the parking lot and headed into the woods, court was told. Rhodes began making sexual advances towards the victim, who initially rejected him but later returned his kisses. Rhodes then forced himself upon the woman once they were alone.”

The frigid bitch was playing coy and obviously got what she deserved! But let’s here the longer version in Lawyerese.

“She had a very different understanding of what was in the accused’s mind than he did,” said Coggan. He said Rhodes never threatened the woman, didn’t have a weapon and was simply “insensitive to the fact (she) was not a willing participant.“

Ohhhh, now I get it.  He was insensitive to that fact that he forcibly had sex with an unwilling partner.  I’m guessing the screaming and the sobbing and the consistently repeated “No’s”, not to mention the struggling,  suggested he should continue…

Where does one even start?  How women dress determines if they are “asking for it” or not?  Or perhaps the venerated idea that one “yes” cancels all the “no’s” after?  It is shocking that such attitudes still rest in the minds of supposedly educated people.  Consider the impact on women who have been raped:

“Lorraine Parrington, who co-ordinates the sexual assault crisis program at Klinic, a community health centre in Winnipeg, said Dewar’s remarks show there needs to be more education about how women should be treated in sexual assault cases.

‘I was appalled. I was outraged. I was disheartened.’—Lorraine Parrington, counsellor

Fewer than 10 per cent of sexual assault cases are actually reported and Parrington worries Dewar’s comments will discourage future victims from coming forward.

“I’d like to say I was shocked. Unfortunately, I’m not after doing this work for lots of years,” she said. “But I was appalled. I was outraged. I was disheartened.”

Men have to learn women can change their minds, and no, at any point in an encounter, means no, she said.

“People have a right to change their mind. If I decide that I want to be engaged in certain sexual behaviour with somebody I can do that and I’m allowed to say, ‘Stop, I don’t want to do it any more.’ That needs to be respected.”

One part of this quote really jumped out at me…I’ll repeat it:

“Men have to learn women can change their minds, and no, at any point in an encounter, means no, she said.”

You don’t say.  Women as autonomous beings, not just objects for the male gaze?  Get out of town.  If our culture was not a rape culture men would not have to “learn” this simple little fact, it would be implicity known from sea to frakking shining sea.  But no, it is most explicitly is not known, hence we get men who are “insensitive” to women’s wishes when it comes to sex, and really it must have been her fault for skinny dipping earlier and wearing high heels and a tube top.

This ruling is being appealed and had better be changed forthwith.  The women of Canada are watching.

A Move Toward Acknowledging Rape Culture – “Not Ever.”

Part of the problem when dealing with the issues of Rape and Rape Culture are the implicit messages that are built into our patriarchal culture.  Full marks to Scotland for starting to tease out one of the threads that holds us back from seeing women as people instead of members of the sex class.

Modelling Patriarchy in the World of MMO’s

One of the neat features of a model is that it allows you to strip down the gloss and inessential features that can sometimes clutter arguments and details about a particular topic; in the case of this post the prevalence of the Patriarchy.  I am certainly not part of the Blamatariat yet, but I feel that I am moving across the spectrum toward a more informed, knowledgeable state of affiars.

There has been a furour on the Intertoobz as of late over the decision (now repealed) by Blizzard, the makers of World of War Craft, to attach players real names to their characters in game and while posting in the game related forum.  The frantic typing and posting resounded across the Net, there are threads about this topic everywhere from Pharyngula to Shakesville.

The questions and concerns raised range from harassment on forums to IRL stalking and worse.  A  jumping off  point in one of the threads took me here to a brilliant post by Nattie on a thread from MetaFilter.  I suggest you go read the entire post with the idea in mind that this could be viewed as a primer for understanding Patriarchy 101.  To the uninitiated the patriarchy can seem a little bit of a fuzzy concept due to the implicit and ingrained nature of how the P functions.  In light of potential learning from this piece I have added hyperlinks to the Shakesville Feminism 101 section for those seeking more illumination than the limited scope provided here.

Nattie says [italics, underlining and links, mine]:

“* If you do post a picture (I never did) people either go nuts over how hot you are and won’t leave you alone -- and the guys that perv on you treat you in a condescending way because hot=stupid; having to hear that shit addressed to other girls on Vent was really infuriating and uncomfortable — OR they make a point of constantly telling you how ugly you are and won’t leave you alone. There is no middle ground. They either want to fuck you or deride you. And it actually doesn’t matter how hot or how ugly you are, either; the hottest girls will get called ugly (and FAT, ALWAYS FAT), and the ugliest girls still have to deal with lonely guys who aren’t superficial. Any time the girl posts something thereafter, people will comment on her appearance, even though it has nothing to do with whatever is being discussed.”

The italicized statements are nothing new to the advanced Blamer, but to the uninitiated parsing them out can be

No objectification going on here. We are most definitly not appealing to the male gaze.

very illuminating.  For instance, the options faced in the the statement A)”oh I you’re sooo hot I want to frak you” or B)”oh you’re so ugly, you are not soooo not”frakkable”.  Both “choices” revolve around the idea that the primary feature of a female is her beauty as viewed by how attractive she is to the male gaze.  Not the content of her character, not her opinions, not her factual claims, but just how she looks. So female worth is judged by how good of a sexual object they appear to be.

This ugly fact has a one to one correspondence to the real meatspace world.  Women deal with this 24/7,all the time, on all stations full on assault on their identity as human beings.

“* If you ask someone to leave you alone, you’re a stuck up bitch. That means you always have to be nice to everyone. This was both unfair and character-building, because now I’m really good at talking to and disengaging from socially ill-adjusted people without hurting their feelings.”

Again, the social expectations of women are quite explicit and when you go against them you get flayed to the bone because you are not properly performing your sanctioned role.  Since when should a person have to ‘be nice’ or be anything all the time or be labelled a ‘stuck up bitch’ (insert your gendered insult here)?  As a woman you get to deal with this as well, just because you happen to possess a double X chromosome.   There are severe repercussions when Patriarchally sanctioned behaviour expectations are not followed.

* Some people think anything you do or say is attention-whoring, even if you never wanted the attention. If a guy makes a joke in a forum post, he’s a funny guy. If a girl makes a joke in a forum post, she’s an attention whore. If a guy makes a good argument in a forum post, he’s a smart guy. If a girl makes a good argument in a forum post, she’s doing it for attention. She’s ESPECIALLY an attention whore if people like her or agree with her.

* Similarly, people assume that the only reason anyone likes you is because they’re one of your fanboys. So people don’t genuinely think women or funny or make good arguments, they’re just fanboys. If other girls like you, then it’s because women form cliques — even if in the previous breath they were saying that women are all catty and hate each other.

Do you notice the pattern of choices that is become prevalent?  Women are presented with two choices both equally shitty that do nothing to further her own autonomy or identity.  You can choose either one patriarchally approved stereotype or the other, both damage you as a person.

“A sizable portion of [the population in general]gamers are racist. (Sexism, racism, and homophobia are what make me most uncomfortable about the gaming community; in a serious way I feel more connection to gamers than any other group, so this pains me. Plenty of gamers are none of these things and I love them to death, but I think those same gamers realize what a huge problem it is in the community in general.) An even bigger portion of gamers are just not very racially sensitive — they’ll use “nigger” or “Jew” a lot, for example, even if they don’t think they actively feel anything against those groups, because they think it’s funny. In the same way that saying stuff is “gay” is especially pronounced in the gamer community, even the people that say slurs ironically or by force of habit inadvertently make actual bigots in the gaming community feel empowered because they don’t realize other people don’t mean those things like they do. It is much more common and acceptable to express racist opinions in the gaming community than society at large.”

The quote really speak for itself, but the tacit acceptance of gendered insults and racist putdowns only reinforces the negative stereotypes that have such corrosive effects in our culture.

I have barely scratched the surface of all the issues that could be covered, just with the quoted materials.  Frighteningly there is almost a 1:1 correspondence to what happens in the gaming world vs. what goes on in the real world, it is just a little easier to see in the gaming world because people are less constrained by social norms and morality in the mostly anonymous world of gaming. (or shorter the vile sexism and batshite crazy stupidity is easily observed)

A big thank you to Shakesville for having such a comprehensive FAQ for dealing with the multitudinous issues that this particular world of warcraft blip brought up.

This Just In – Women *still* people if they ‘dress provocatively’.

How deep does rape culture go?  How deeply ingrained is the patriarchally approved objectification of women in our ‘civil’ society?

Observe.

Unfortunately wordpress fails at embedded video.  I need to redirect you to the Feminsting blog to watch the clips in question.

This scene is played a total of 4 times, with a white couple and a black couple.  In each clip the women are made up to look as if they had been recently abused.  The difference between clip #1 and clip #2 is that the women are dressed provocatively in clip #2.  Nothing over the top, but what would, on a Saturday night out be considered normal attire.

This is not a particularly scientific experiment, but rather a useful (and disturbing) insight on how our rape culture operates.

Let me boil it down.  When women are dressed conservatively, they are more likely to receive help and people coming to their aid.  While dressed ‘provocatively’ the story changes completely.  People do not come to their aid, they avert their eyes, they tell the wait staff or ask to be moved… but do they intervene as the woman is being verbally and physically abused?  Not one patron in the restaurant lifts a finger.

How you are dressed determines if you are candidate for help.

The two middle aged women in the second clip, the ones that asked to be moved, speculate that the abused woman in question is a prostitute as they disdainfully glare at her.  Well she is dressed slutty and therefore obviously she deserves what she gets is the subtext of their reactions.

There is much to digest and compare between the two clips, and most of it is quite disgusting and disheartening.

Women are still looked upon as objects in our society.  They are not judged as human beings, but as mere objects.  More to the point, objects that deserve the abuse they receive based on how they look.

I’m done for awhile with this post.