appropriately-inappropriate:
peanutbutterandjamzee:
agathokakologica1:
kateordie:
Sometimes I have the time and patience to get from an idea to a fully fleshed-out, penciled, inked and coloured comic.
Sometimes I don’t.
Well how do you expect people to respond when you give the opposition such retarded arguments?
1) It’s awful when anyone uses anyone as an object for their amusement. Men against men, men against women, women against women, and women against men. There is evidence of objectification of everyone against everyone, EVERYWHERE. It’s part of what we do as human beings, and it’s almost never intentional.
2) Men are astronomically more likely to be violently assaulted and murdered, both historically and contemporarily. Also, the 1 in 4 statistic has been debunked time and time again.
3) God forbid that strangers think you’re attractive. Even if they’re rude about it, catcalling is not a form of oppression.
4) The “rapists always go free” myth has been debunked countless times.
5) Telling women to not do things that put them at greater risk of danger is not rape culture. It’s precautionary, in the same way that we tell people to not have unprotected sex or they’ll get STDs, or how we tell people to not eat too much sugar because it’s bad for you. If I have unprotected sex with a stranger, and I get AIDS, and someone says “well if you didn’t have unprotected sex with a stranger you wouldn’t have AIDS,” they’re right. It’s not oppression that people hold you somewhat accountable for choosing to not foresee the risks of your own actions. Rapists are ALWAYS held chiefly responsible by society for their actions, as any criminal is.
6) Third-wave feminist demands of “equality” are simply not so. The vast majority of it, when they aren’t dealing with skewed statistics, is the idea that women should be protected by society from all dangers in ways that men are not. By definition, it is gender supremacy.
A+ commentary, glad I didn’t have to make it.
With all due respect to agatho, I’ll have to disagree.
There is evidence of objectification of everyone against everyone, EVERYWHERE. It’s part of what we do as human beings, and it’s almost never intentional.
The bolding is mine, to highlight two especially incorrect points. First, a cursory look at any advertisement will illustrate the fact that objectification of the female form is rampant, and that the insinuation of the female form as an object to be attained (either “you can look like this” for ads targeted at women or “you can possess/attract this” in ads targeted at men) is one of the most effective and common ways of marketing a product. If you like, I would be more than happy to provide numerous examples.
Secondly, the fact of the matter is that objectifying a person is rarely, rarely unintentional. The media is especially culpable of this; when the female figure is advertised as something to attain/aspire to, it creates a culture of objectification that begins to trickle into the daily parlance.
You don’t think men are objectified as well? What would you call the Old Spice guy? How about pretty much every action star ever? You’re blind to this objectification because you’re not learned in the field, of course, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Men have eating disorders and body dysphoria as well; men are taught to be strong and muscular, but at the same time are told to seem like they don’t care how they look at all. It’s arguably far harder for men to maintain the “media-mandated figure” than for women.
Men are astronomically more likely to be violently assaulted and murdered
This is both true and false. While men are the overwhelming victims of violent assaults and murders stemming from violent assults (burglary, gang shootings, aggravated assault, etc), women are the primary targets for different types of violence. Women are the primary target of burglars, muggers, rapists and serial killers. Likewise, women are far more likely than men to be the victims of domestic abuse.
As for the 1 in 4 statistic, I’d like to see some citations—I’ve seen the figure vary between 1 in 4 and 1 in 6. On occasion, the statistic will rise as high as 1 in 10 (quoted for violent sexual assault), but even so—that is 10% of women, or 15,579,595* individuals in the US alone—and that’s for reported rapes, and as I’m sure you’re aware, the vast majority of rapes remain unreported.
[* US population = 311,591,917, women = 50.8% of population, conservative estimate of rape victims = 10% = final total]
The 1 in 4 (or any 1 in X) figures are not in fact looking at reported rapes, as they’re collected from scholarly surveys which are purposely set up to avoid that exact problem. Many of these surveys are rendered inaccurate through the addition of questions which label mutually-intoxicated sex (the most common kind of intoxicated sex) as a case where the woman was victimized. This has the potential to vastly inflate the totals. Separate from this, even if we accept these figures as fact male violent victimization still substantially exceeds female violent victimization, and you’re effectively cherrypicking down to “well women have it worse in this small particular area even though men have it worse everywhere else.” It’s also hard to overlook you pointing out that men are the overwhelming victims of violence from burglary, and then turning around and stating that women are the primary targets of….burglary.
All of this, though, is secondary to your erasing male victims of rape. According to the CDC’s NIPSVS, men make up roughly fifty percent of the yearly victims of rape outside of prison. Additionally, the US DOJ estimates that within prison there are roughly 216,000 yearly victims, virtually all of them men. Let’s clarify something here: that’s not “216,000 rapes,” that’s “216,000 victims,” many if not most of which are subjected to repeated rapes through violence and the threat of violence, generally considered to be the most severe form of rape. A large portion of these victims are subjected to what is effectively gang-rape on a weekly or even daily basis. These victims are also subject to contracting STIs such as HIV at vastly greater rates than other victims, meaning that these victims are the most likely to die as a result of their rape.
Outside prison, men are affected nearly equally by rape. Within prison, they’re subjected to more rape than all the women outside of prison. Women are not the majority victims of rape, and frankly they’re not even close. The only difference, actually, is that the female victims of rape are offered attention, resources, victim services and sympathy. Male victims get ridicule, and that’s if they’re lucky.
God forbid that strangers think you’re attractive
There is a difference between, “Excuse me, Miss, but you have beautiful eyes”, and “AY MAMA LOOKIT THAT ASS MM BABY WHAT I’D DO TO YOU. MAKE YOU SQUEAL!”
One makes me happy, the other makes me feel like a piece of meat.
Likewise, it is neither my intent or my goal to look attractive for the sake of strangers, so I couldn’t care less what their opinion of me is.
catcalling is not a form of oppression
Catcalling serves two purposes. One, it is a reminder that a woman’s body exists as a commodity for other peoples’ pleasure. It reminds a woman that she will always be the subject, always something on a stage for someone else to pass judgement upon. Secondly, it’s a threat. Tacit, subtle, but a threat. It is disempowering and frightening to walk past a group of hecklers and know that you are outnumbered and outgunned, as it were. It reminds women that the streets are unsafe and that they are unsafe on them.
And yet catcalls to men are seen as nothing but a compliment. This also fails to recognize that men get an entirely different kind of catcall, which is less of a “tacit, subtle” threat than one delivered outright. Indeed, they serve as a regular reminder that while the streets may not be safe for women, men are at several times more risk than they are.
The “rapists always go free” myth has been debunked countless times.
The average sex offender, if arrested and found guilty, serves on average roughly 5.4 years, generally in a mid-security prison. Often, they are released early for good behaviour, or on parole.
IF the rape is reported at all and if there is enough evidence to convict and if the victim decides to press charges—which as we know is pretty rare. So again, citation needed for that claim.
It’s not oppression that people hold you somewhat accountable for choosing to not foresee the risks of your own actions.
You are aware that the vast majority of rapes aren’t happening in darkened alleyways because some tart was wearing her heels too high and her skirt too short, right? It’s done at parties, by friends, or family members. The vast majority of rapes are done by someone the victim knows and trusts—and as you should be aware, clothing has very little to do with a rape. Rapes are an act of aggression and domination, not sex.
You can’t seriously be erasing male victims here too. And your point is irrelevant. People telling others to keep themselves safe isn’t the same thing as victim blaming. Additionally, the idea that rape has nothing to do with sex is, for lack of a better word, a convenient fallacy. By reframing rape as a crime of aggression and domination, it can be used to justify many inaccurate feminist positions centering on the idea of men acting to control women within society. Besides the obvious problems with the idea, it’s largely disproved by the fact that the vast majority of rapists display no preference for rape over consensual sex: that is, they’d be just as happy if the victim consented, something that’s completely incompatible with the idea of rape as a crime of power and aggression. While indeed power is sometimes a factor in rape, evidence seems to show that this is not the primary cause.
As for “citation needed,” see here and here. Also, the sentence you quoted is relatively in line with sentences for aggravated assault, the most reasonably comparable crime to rape.
Likewise, while it is prudent for individuals to be aware of their own surroundings, it is NOT my fault if Person X decides to rape me—it is the fault of Person X for being a rapist. What you’re doing is tacitly victim-blaming.
We aren’t; we agree with you here.
To use your HIV analogy (which is crude and nasty, by the way), it’s more akin to having unprotected sex with a partner who has assured you of their sero-negative status… only to announce subsequent to ejaculation that LOL they’re actually poz after all neener neener—and then being told that “it’s your fault for not wearing a rubber in the first place”.
See the fallacy there?
Rapists are ALWAYS held chiefly responsible by society for their actions
Aren’t you sweet. The majority of rapes aren’t reported—and as you so charmingly illustrated above, even when those rapes are reported, people are generally pretty quick to tell the victim she was asking for it—either her heels were too high or she was too drunk or she was too flirty or she was too…
Again erasing male victims, and this time failing to realize that male victims tend to report rape at a far lesser rate than female victims. Also there is no way of proving the rate of unreported rapes.
There’s always something, and rapists generally get away with it.
Third-wave feminist demands of “equality” are simply not so
Crassly incorrect. In the case of rapists, feminism is saying, “lets be equal. We [generally] don’t rape you—so don’t rape us.”
That sounds pretty equal to me.
Well, if “equal” means writing law in such a way as to exclude male victims, regularly promoting inaccurate statistics regarding rape and directly blocking the address of male rape while attempting to remove the last shreds of due process where possible for people accused of rape and inaccurately denying the existence of and rates of false allegations….sure.
