Sex, Lies and Political Agendas

A very good article over at the False Rape Society, on how women's advocates are harming victims by their spinning of the outcome of the DSK sexual assault case. I started to leave a comment there, but then it got kinda big, so I decided a post was in order.

Prosecution's decision to drop the case has been condemned by women's advocates as a miscarriage of justice. They characterize the system as one that demands a "perfect victim" if they aren't going to abandon her. This is a gross mischaracterization of the facts of this specific case. Nafissatou Diallo was not just an "imperfect victim", she was a "toxic complainant" who has a long history of lying, and has done pretty much nothing but lie from the moment she reported the alleged incident.

Credibility is important in a sexual assault case--more important than in many other criminal prosecutions. In cases of rape and sexual assault, there is often no physical evidence unambiguously indicating a crime was even committed. What evidence there may be is frequently evidence of a legal act, not a criminal one. The factors that differentiate the legal act of sex from the crime of rape are based entirely on two states of mind: those of the victim's non-consent, and the perpetrator's intent--that is, his (or a reasonable or law-abiding person's) awareness of the victim's lack of consent.

There are usually only two witnesses who can testify to either party's state of mind at the time of the incident--and each of those two witnesses have a vested and oppositional interest in the outcome of the trial. This means that in a sexual assault case, credibility is everything. Due to the ambiguity of the evidence and the biases of the only eyewitnesses, it should be more difficult to convict a man of rape than it is to convict a man of murder, or aggravated assault, or any number of other crimes that rely more heavily on physical/forensic evidence.

But here's something I bet you all didn't know (I'll explain why you probably don't know it below). The conviction rate for rape is frequently higher than the conviction rate for homicide. Seriously. The conviction rate for a crime where there is no unambiguous physical evidence, and which therefore hinges almost entirely on a jury believing one party over the other, is often higher than the conviction rate for a crime with a dead body, forensic evidence of cause of death, and physical evidence tying the defendant to the crime.

To suggest that the outcome of the DSK case means the system "doesn't work" is egregiously misleading and harmful. I'm not going to lie. The system works perfectly for neither victims nor defendants, but it's the best possible balance we can manage given the circumstances. And to characterize the dismissal of the DSK case as some sort of evil on the part of the prosecution is...well, I can only say it's batshit insane. Diallo repeatedly lied to those whose job it is to help her and punish the man who allegedly assaulted her. Then recanted her lies, only to present prosecutors with, yup, more lies. She insisted she was not after money, then launched a civil suit against DSK for monetary damages. She lied to the Grand Jury, under oath. She quite plainly proved herself to be someone who can't be counted on to tell the truth about anything.

Even more frightening to prosecutors was her ability to lie with "complete conviction". This meant that, no matter how convincing her story of a given day or week was, there was no way for prosecutors to determine if THIS particular version was the truth. The complaining witness was not an "imperfect victim". She was the justice system's worst nightmare. To go to trial with an alleged victim who can lie so convincingly that even prosecutors could not tell truth from falsehood...this could result in railroading a potentially innocent man based on the word of a woman who'd taken a tire iron to her own credibility.

As the FRS rightly claims, this case does not demonstrate that prosecutors require "perfect victims", and it is the women's advocates who make such absurd statements--not police or prosecutors--who are discouraging women from coming forward to report their rapes.

But I think women's "advocates" have a very different agenda from the one they openly admit to. As people who care about women, and care about rape victims, they should be doing everything in their power to convince women to come forward and report when they are raped. And yet they do the exact opposite.

WHY?

I once suggested on a feminist forum that my advice to any victim of rape was to get a kit done. Even if you don't want to report--in fact, even if you're positive you don't want to--getting a kit done leaves you with options if you ever change your mind. You can stand on the bridge for a long time before deciding to cross it or go back, but not if you've burned the way in front of you--and you do that by washing away all the physical evidence of what was done to you. Not getting a rape kit done erases all your choices, removes all your power.

Oh, the shit I got from feminists! That I should have the gall to "tell victims what to do! Don't you realize how hard it is? How small the chances of justice are? How victims are revictimized if they report? It's up to every victim how she wants to respond to what happened to her! She knows what's best for herself!"

I suppose it's just as well that I didn't suggest that women have a social responsibility to report their rapes, even if they don't want to go through the ordeal of pursuing charges. Go in to police, tell them, "I was raped. His name is John Doe. His DNA is in a test tube at Local Hospital. I don't want to pursue the case. But if another woman comes in saying this guy raped her, believe her and do everything you can to nail him."

Imagine someone implying that women have a responsibility to other people! I would probably have been crucified for even hinting at such a thing.

Sigh.

There's a pervasive and very public sentiment among feminists and women's advocates that it is pointless to report. That women should not trust the police or the legal system because it will, at best, let them down, and at worst, clobber them. At the same time, they inflate rape statistics, always applying the highest possible estimates on non-report figures (even when such numbers couldn't possibly add up), and including women who didn't believe they'd been raped among victims in surveys. At the same time, they deflate false report statistics, clinging to the insistence that false report rates for rape are ~2%, the same as for every other crime, even though a growing body of evidence places the rate somewhere between 8% and a staggering 50%.

They routinely compare the attrition rate for rape (the percentage of reported rapes that end in conviction) alongside the conviction rates (the percentage of trials that end in conviction) for other crimes. How many times have we all read that the "conviction rate" for rape is a "pathetic" 6%, when in reality it is usually 50-60%, and often higher than the conviction rate for homicide.

All while simultaneously implying there is nothing women can do, no way they can (or should) dress or behave that will minimize their risk, and that every woman is at risk because "any woman can be raped". They go out of their way to highlight a "culture of victim-blaming" that, in their view, applies solely to rape, when I would argue that we as a society are more likely to engage in blaming male victims of female violence (he must have done something to deserve it, he was probably a cheater, he probably battered her, she was defending herself), and male victims of female reproductive abuse (he should have thought of that before he had sex, don't stick your dick in crazy, if he didn't want kids he should have kept it in his pants).

Even when these feminists and victim advocates are being nominally truthful, they still spin the truth in the most pessimistic light.

It's like they want women to believe that there's a HUGE chance they'll be raped, that there's nothing they can do to prevent it, and that when it happens, not only will no one help them, but those responsible for helping them will only inflict more harm on them. To what purpose?

We're seeing the thin end of the wedge on campus now, with the attack on due process rights--the new 50.01% burden of proof, the barring of an accused from cross-examining his accuser, etc. Feminist's defence of this atrocious situation tends to consist of, "What, so it's a horrible thing that the accused won't be able to personally ask the accuser, 'Isn't it true you're a big ol' slut?'" when such a question would already be inadmissible in any hearing or court. Again, painting a false picture of the process as it was before this "reform" in the ugliest possible colors.

I can only believe that those who engage in this kind of scare-mongering and doomsaying have a specific goal in mind. I'm not a conspiracy nut, but here's how I see it, looking at the entirety of feminist discourse on rape:

• discourage women from reporting by telling them it is pointless, that they won't be believed, or will be blamed for their own rapes and revictimized by the system, that the police can't be trusted
• manipulate consent law to the point where even women who enthusiastically participated in consensual sex can be numbered among victims (consensual drunk sex, consensual unconscious sex)
• generate fear among women by telling them there is nothing they can, or should have to, do to protect themselves from rape
• generate fear among women by telling them that any woman at any time is at risk of rape
• inflate the numbers for underreporting, leading to a pervasive belief that rape is everywhere
• compare attrition rates for rape with conviction rates for other crimes, so that the public will believe the system doesn't work in rape cases
• constantly reiterate the erroneous 2% false rape "statistic", generating an erroneous assumption that women "don't lie about rape"
• define rape as a crime of "patriarchal domination" rather than one that has a multitude of different factors and causes--in other words, blame rape on "maleness" in such a way that all men are cast as rapists or rapists-in-waiting
• charge the discourse with emotional language that places "feelings" in authority over facts--i.e: "If she feels she was raped, then she was raped."
• characterize the necessary due process protections for accused rapists as an "infringement of female/victim's rights", even though the "rights" of complainants--female or otherwise--are currently greater in cases of sexual assault and rape than in other criminal case (anonymity is a privilege, not a right, as is the inadmissibility of an accuser's sometimes relevant sexual history)

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here? The last thing many women's advocates want is for anyone to believe the system isn't irreparably broken. Because if it isn't hideously broken, then there is no need to "fix" it or rebuild it. And if rape isn't everywhere, and something women must walk around in constant fear of, then the masses will simply never be terrified enough of it to enact the kind of overhaul that would lead to the kinds of "reforms" that are "necessary", ones we've already seen enacted on campuses across the US.

After examining the entirety of the rhetoric of sexual assault and rape from feminist circles, I can only conclude that the end game of women's advocacy groups is to reengineer sexual assault and rape law to the point where a woman need only claim a man raped her for him to be locked away for years. 

Welcome to Hell.

Again? Sigh...

Again Schrodinger's Rapist, and yet another attempt to point out all that is wrong with men with respect to how they don't respect women's fears, and another pointless exercise in trying to explain to men that this is somehow not bigotry.

It opens:

Schrodinger’s Rapist is not about “all men are rapists.”

It is not even about “all men are potential rapists.” All men are, in fact, potential rapists, in much the same sense as all women are potential rapists, and all brunettes are potential rapists. All people are potential rapists, because rape is not a function of anything about a person except the fact that they rape people.

It is about “a very significant proportion of women will, when you approach them, be assessing whether you are going to be That Asshole...”

Okay. So far, so good. But let's reword things a little here, substituting "men" for another largely villified and demonized group:

Schrodinger’s Gangsta is not about “all black people are criminals.”

It is not even about “all black people are potential criminals.” All blacks are, in fact, potential criminals, in much the same sense as all whites are potential criminals, and all Asians are potential criminals. All people are potential criminals, because crime is not a function of anything about a person except the fact that they commit crimes.

It is about “a very significant proportion of whites will, when you approach them, be assessing whether you are going to be That Thug...”

Sounds a little different when put that way, don't it? And if someone, some blogger, some woman, some man, even some black person, were to follow that intro up with this:

...and it is in your best interest to ensure their conclusion is not that you are.”

...no one would have any problem whatsoever calling out their racist ass. It is not up to black people to bend over backwards to prove to white people that they are not criminals, any more than it is up to men to bend over backwards to prove to women that they are not rapists.

But wait! There's more. Here's a goodie:

That Asshole makes up only a tiny percentage of men. However, he has poisoned the well for everyone else.

I think a lot of men underestimate the fear most women have around rape. For instance, I am the happiest little slut you could ever hope to meet. However, I would never have sex with a man whom a friend, or a friend of a friend, didn’t vouch for, because he might kidnap, rape and murder me. On a rational level, I know the chance of me getting murdered because of Craigslist Casual Encounters W4M is about as likely as me getting hit by lightning. However, on the emotional level, my brain associates “sex with men I don’t know” with “getting murdered.”

Uh huh. Let's look at it this way:

That Thug makes up only a tiny percentage of black people. However, he has poisoned the well for everyone else.

I think a lot of black people underestimate the fear most white people have around violent crime. For instance, I have lots of black friends. However, I would never associate with with a black person whom a friend, or a friend of a friend, didn’t vouch for, because they might assault, rob and murder me. On a rational level, I know the chance of me getting beaten up because I talked to a black person at the bus stop is about as likely as me getting hit by lightning. However, on the emotional level, my brain associates “being around black people I don’t know” with “getting assaulted.”

In other words, "Please understand that I'm bigoted against people like you, simply because of your biology and my own inability to judge people as individuals, understand that I have cause to be this way, and you're just going to have to accept the fact that this is YOUR problem, not mine. I acknowledge that my fears are essentially groundless, since I know, as I stated in my first paragraph, that other groups of people commit crimes, and only a small percentage of people in your group commit crimes, but it is up to YOU to prove to ME that you are not a criminal before I will treat you as a human being worthy of interaction with me."

I'm disgusted. Absolutely disgusted. Whatever prejudices and fears--rational or otherwise--people may hold in the privacy of their own thoughts, no one could ever get away with talking in this way about Jews, or Muslims, or black people, or Asians, or Hispanics. Yet this...this is not only an accepted way of thinking about men, it is defended, over and over, when the identifiable group involved is men.

How about we reword it again? Let's try this:

Schrodinger’s Maneater is not about “all women are evil.”

It is not even about “all women are potentially evil.” All women are, in fact, potentially evil, in much the same sense as all men are potentially evil, and all brunettes are potentially evil. All people are potentially evil, because evil is not a function of anything about a person except the fact that they do evil things.

It is about “a very significant proportion of men will, when you approach them, be assessing whether you are going to be That Crazy Bitch...”

...That Crazy Bitch makes up only a tiny percentage of women. However, she has poisoned the well for everyone else.

I think a lot of women underestimate the fear most men have around relationships of any kind. For instance, I am the happiest little stud you could ever hope to meet. However, I would never date or have sex with a woman whom a friend, or a friend of a friend, didn’t vouch for, because she might lie about being on birth control and ding me for 18 years paying for a child I didn't want, or cry rape the next morning when her boyfriend demands to know where she was all night, or only be after my wallet, or take me for everything I have or care about--including my kids--when she's done with me. On a rational level, I know the chance of me getting screwed over in some way because I slept with or entered a relationship with a woman is about as likely as me...well, actually, it's getting likelier all the time. Huh. I mean, on an emotional level, I want intimacy with a woman, but my powers of observation and sense of self-preservation associates "sexual involvement with women, whether I know them or not", with "getting fucked over, maybe for life.”

The big difference between what Ozymandias wrote, and my rewrite, is that my rewrite is not based on sexism. My rewrite acknowledges that only a tiny percentage of women commit the wrongs I described above, and does not hold all women somehow responsible for the behavior of a few. What my rewrite does, however, is address the reality that should a woman turn out to be That Crazy Bitch, she will be aided and abetted by the legal system--both family and criminal--in her wrongdoings.

I used to think it was only the system that was broken--a system that has effectively ignored, dismissed and trampled the rights of men in favor of women's interests. But now, after reading blog after blog and comment after comment from women who've succumbed to rape hysteria, patriarchal oppression hysteria, domestic terrorist hysteria...I'm finding that more and more, it is women who are broken. They've been broken by a system that panders to their interests in the most negative way possible--by sacrificing men and masculinity on the altar of "equality".

I'm not afraid of men, and I never have been, not even after my assault. And I suppose there may come a time when I end up getting seriously burned by that lack of fear. But the possibility of being burned *isn't worth the price of living my whole life in fear*, of rape, of men, of sex, of relationships, of meeting people, of experiencing intimacy, of *living*.

The women who fear Schrodinger's Rapist are living in a cage made of their own prejudice and fear. That is THEIR problem, not men's, and it's up to THEM to climb the fuck out of there, not up to men or to the ever decreasing numbers of sane women to climb in there with them.

It is not men's responsibility to pander to and indulge women's irrational fears, Ozymandias. Women's irrational fears of rape are their own fucking problem, and they need to deal with it.

Atheists, elevators and watermelons...

So Rebecca "Elevatorgate" Watson has finally come out of hiding to post a video response to the criticisms she's received over the shitstorm instigated by her, "Word to the wise....guys? Don't do that," advice.

I am...well, I'm hardly shocked. 

There was a crap-ton (1.016 crap-tonnes, for us Canucks) of commentary and debate on her initial video, with many thoughtful and eloquent opinions on both sides. Granted, there was plenty of "shut up u dum cunt u just hate men ur stupid and ulgy bitch" going on (this is Youtube, after all...the gathering place of pretty much every human being alive who has not learned to spell, punctuate or express complex thought), but her treatment of the criticism she received...

I can only say to Rebecca Watson, "Atheism: Ur doin it rong."

Atheism rests on a few tenets. One is that faith and moral absolutism are essentially harmful to society. There's plenty of evidence to back this up. Argue religion with anyone who is devoutly religious, and you'll come up against a wall, again and again, an intellectual dead end that usually goes something like this:

"I'm a [Christian, Muslim, Hindu, whatever] because I know my religion is right. All the evidence I need is my faith. And if you don't believe the way I do, you are [heathen, infidel, amoral, wrong, ignorant, about to die, going to hell]."

I was poking around some atheist videos while on Youtube, and came across an assertion by a Muslim, in an interview with Richard Dawkins. The Muslim indicated that because Dawkins was non-religious, he by definition must have no moral code--that atheists, in not having an external and absolute set of ethical rules to live by, "would not care" if, say, people were copulating in the street. That if morality is flexible, then it is worthless.

Dawkins responded by saying morality itself should not be immune to examination and criticism. At one time, we believed slavery to be, if not morally good, at least morally neutral. We as a society think differently now. If our morality was absolute, there would be no room for equality or humanity, no room to improve society. I would further argue that if you're only being "good" because you've been told to, and the penalty for not being "good" is an eternity in hell, you are no different than a homicidal sociopath who knows to behave himself when there are cops around.

So now let's examine Rebecca Watson's assessment of the shitstorm that ensued after her initial video and how this meshes with her atheism.

Her description of her critics is confined to "a large audience of idiots." In other words, "I'm right. All I need to know I'm right is my feelings. And anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot."

She then reduces that field of "idiots" even further, down to: 

"I just wanted to address some of the questions you've all had....'I'm a man, and I don't see the problem in cornering a woman in an elevator and inviting her back to my room...uh, despite the fact that she said she's tired and going to bed, and despite the fact that she said she didn't want to be hit on, and despite the fact that I've never talked to her before. I don't see a problem with this situation. So if you say I can't do that, then how can I possibly get laid?'"

Yes. Because this is the only problem anyone had with her complaint and the ensuing debacle. The whole, "How are we supposed to we get laid if we can't 'corner' women in elevators?" thing. That was men's only concern.

There was absolutely no concern expressed by anyone regarding how male sexuality has been so effectively demonized that even a polite pass (maybe...heck, maybe it was just coffee) in an enclosed space could kick off a chain reaction of rhetoric that descended into passionate feminist testimonials outlining how all women walk around in fear of rape, comparing men to dogs that just might be rabid so RUN!!, that being in an enclosed space with a strange man is scary enough even when he doesn't open his mouth, and that "because you're men, you just don't understand women's understandable terror of sexual assault, and how we have to assume every man could be a rapist because maybe he is!" 

Nope. No concerns about that at all.

The equivalent would be if that Muslim had accused Richard Dawkins of wanting to do away with religion so he'd have carte blanche to fuck people in the street. Because hey, there's no other possible reason an Atheist might have a bone to pick with religion. Nope. 

But then. Oh then...

Then Rebecca Watson goes on to categorize those who agree with her as "normal". Normal this and normal that, and other subsets of normal people who were blind before but saw the light of her wisdom and are thankful for it. 

And those who disagreed? Creeps who can't get laid. We know they can't get laid, because she goes to great lengths to helpfully suggest alternatives to the flesh and blood women these guys won't be fucking--sex dolls, fleshlights, and watermelons with holes cut in them. 

The misandric inanity, it hurts. It hurts SO BAD. 

I almost don't know what to say. I really don't. Other than that Rebecca Watson is clearly a religious nut. Her religion is not Atheism, it's feminism. 

Feminism has all the answers, you see. Feminism dictates what is "appropriate" and what is not, what will "get guys laid" and what will not, what is "normal" and what is not, who are idiots and who are not, what should be allowed and what should not, how people--especially men--should behave and how they should not. Feminism is her absolute morality. Change "normal" to "saved", and change "creeps" and "idiots" to "sinners" and you've got yourself a bona fide cult. Convert, heathen, or be doomed to a life of loneliness, porn and masturbation (hell on earth, for sure). 

Which tells me that in addition to being a sexist bigot who, when she has nothing relevant to say descends into pettiness and insults, Rebecca Watson kind of sucks at being an atheist.

The man with no name

Okay, so we've all seen this woman's face by now:

She's the lovely specimen who drugged her soon-to-be ex husband, tied him to a bed, waited for him to wake, cut his penis off with a kitchen knife. She then put it down the garbage disposal in order, one presumes, to eliminate any possibility of reattaching it.

*giggle*

When police arrived, she merely told them, "He deserved it." So what was his offense, that merited the amputation and destruction of his penis? Apparently, he filed for divorce.

*titter*

And now, as he lies (possibly) recovering from near-death from shock and blood loss, he has become the punchline of a joke that began with Lorena and John Wayne Bobbit. Filed for divorce? "That'll teach him," quips an audience member during a recent episode of CBS's The Talk. Followed by host Sharon Osborne's assertion that, though she's unaware of all the details leading up to the attack, "it's quite fabulous."

*haha*

Now quick, all of you. Can anyone here tell me, off the top of your head, what Catherine Kieu's husband's name is? Don't know it? Huh. I must confess, I don't know it, either. And while this may indeed be simply because his name has been withheld (would YOU want to go through the rest of your life aware that everyone knows you have no penis?), watching this video by Angry Harry (who is actually a very calm and rational dude, as well as brilliant), I'm coming to realize that we as a society are perfectly content knowing nothing meaningful about this man.

In a very insidious way, he does not exist to us. He is neither human nor real, and because he is neither human nor real, his suffering means nothing to us. We feel less empathy for him, an actual person, than we feel for Holden Caulfield of Catcher in the Rye. We feel less empathy for him than for Optimus Prime, for fuck sake.

Why is this? Because he's a man, and we are trained as a society to see "men" as something less than whole people? More and more, we view men through their usefulness to society (firefighter, soldier, crew member, miner), their wrongdoings (rapist, murderer, thief, robber), or through their relationships with women (father, brother, son, husband).

In the first case, we have no empathy for them because, as Angry Harry said so eloquently, they've been reduced from human beings to "human doings". In the second case, we view them through the lens of their victims, making it all to easy to distance ourselves from their humanity. And in the third, we view them through the lens of the women in their lives. Our empathy is for her, even if she doesn't deserve it. No matter how despicable her crime was, no matter how inexcusable, no matter how unwarranted, no matter how evil, her suffering is somehow more worthy of sympathy to us than his.

She deserves our understanding, our support, our pity. And what does her victim deserve? Who cares? It's not like he even has a name. He only exists to us through his role as "husband of the penis mutilator". His suffering is so abstract to us as a society, we can even feel comfortable laughing about it.

Somehow, I don't think the man's friends and family are giggling over this. I really don't.

In a recent discussion about why I believe in the causes of MRAs, I said these words:

As a mother, I'd throw myself in front of a bullet for either of my sons, because their lives matter to me. But more importantly their lives matter to them.

And I think this is something that is utterly forgotten in the quest for ever more rights/privileges for women. That men are human beings unto themselves. If they're alive, they're not only someone's father/son/husband/wallet. If they're dead, they deserve a portion of the tears shed, not just the women who will have to live without them. They have value in and of themselves, not just a value that can be measured as a function of their usefulness or importance to women or society.

We've all heard the expression of common, progressive wisdom in that a society can be measured by how it treats its women.

And how it treats its men? If this was the yardstick we were forced to measure our society by, if it was one that even entered into the public consciousness, I'm pretty sure we'd be failing.

Well, that's that...

So she has a name. It's Nafissatou Diallo. A pretty woman, with a pretty smile.

A pretty woman who lied about being gang-raped to bolster her case for asylum in the US. A pretty woman who lied about her income and its sources, hiding the fact that tens of thousands of dollars of (probably ill-gotten) money had been deposited in her bank account. A pretty woman who lied to the government about how many children she had, to up her tax benefits. A pretty woman who has now--after the case blew up--been characterized as a hotel "working girl" who provided special "turn-down" services to male guests for big tips. A pretty woman who's been accused of running a pyramid scheme, scamming her fellow Guineans out of money.

A pretty woman who lied about her activities immediately following the alleged attack by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but whose amended account still cannot be confirmed by hotel card-key data. A woman who phoned an incarcerated man within hours of the alleged assault to discuss how best to benefit from it, telling him, "Don't worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I'm doing."

Was she raped? I honestly don't know. Maybe she was. And if so, it sucks that she's never going to get justice.

But one thing I do know--if DSK's name had been kept from the press, if every news outlet hadn't splashed his name all over the place and speculated mostly upon his guilt rather than his right to due process, if every politician and powerful, wealthy man across the globe wasn't watching the case like a hawk, if prosecutors didn't have to eat crow over their crappy complainant after putting DSK through the indignity of a publicized perp-walk and forcing him to pay millions for bail and hundreds of thousands for his own house arrest measures...if this was a quiet sexual assault case without eight-hundred spotlights shining on it because of the accused's notariety, Nafissatou Diallo's chances of getting justice, if indeed she was assaulted, would have been a hell of a lot better.

With all the attention the case was getting, no prosecutor in his right mind would move forward with it once their complainant was outed as a pathological liar for personal gain. Who wants to fight that battle in front of the global media?

If she was raped, rape shield protection for the accused would have done nothing but help her chances of seeing her rapist punished through the criminal justice system.

So why aren't we extending that protection in all cases of rape and sexual assault? Because feminists want those names and faces plastered all over the media, so the "rapists until proven innocent" will be suitably punished even if they're acquitted on a technicality, and to hell with the innocent who get punished along with them.

Right now, a woman can ruin a man with a single accusation even if the case is abandoned long before trial, and if she does it out of malice, it's very very rare that we ever learn her name. She will almost never face any real penalty for doing so. And the innocent? Fuck 'em, I guess.

Unilateral rape shield anonymity has turned sexual assault crime into a modern version of the Salem witch trials, one that makes Lord of the Flies look civilized by comparison. If we must keep rape shield laws in place, there is no better time than now to push for those laws to extend to protecting the anonymity of the accused in rape and sexual assault cases.

How Feminism Hates Women

Part Two: Unwanted Sex vs. Rape

From Wikipedia:

Actus reus, sometimes called the external element or the objective element of a crime, is the Latin term for the "guilty act" which, when proved beyond a reasonable doubt in combination with the mens rea, "guilty mind", produces criminal liability in the common law-based criminal law jurisdictions of Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, England, Ireland and the United States.

Mens rea is Latin for "guilty mind". In criminal law, it is viewed as one of the necessary elements of a crime. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind be also guilty".

Okay, so let's pretend we're talking about me, and what we're talking about is me crashing my car into another vehicle, killing the driver. The act of crashing my car into his and killing him is the actus reus, and let's say that this fact is not in dispute. Once it has been established that I did indeed crash my car into another and kill the driver, an investigation will be done (I would hope!), and the attendant circumstances examined, and it will only then be determined whether I have committed a crime.

Let's say I undergo a breath test and am found to be legally impaired. In this case, I will be found to have the mens rea of recklessness--I engaged in conduct a law-abiding person would have refrained from, and that conduct resulted in a foreseeable death. I may be charged with a variety of crimes, based on my degree of inebriation and other circumstances--drunk driving causing death, vehicular manslaughter, reckless indifference homicide, etc.

Let's say I live in a jurisdiction where it's still legal to use a cell phone while driving, and I was on the phone when I crashed into him. If it can be determined I was paying more attention to my phone than the road, I will be found to have the mens rea of negligence--that is, a reasonable person would have been able to foresee the danger of my behavior and the harm it might cause. I will probably be charged with manslaughter.

Let's say I drove through an intersection where a stop sign had been stolen or knocked over by vandals. If there was a wrongdoer in this case, it was certainly not me, and I have committed no crime.

Or let's say the other driver ran the stop sign. In this case, I have also done nothing wrong, and have committed no crime.

Or let's say I drove over a nail which blew my tire, and I could not regain control of my car in time to avoid the accident. Again, I have done nothing criminal.

Let's say I saw that the other driver was my ex-husband, and I floored the gas pedal, slamming my car into his before backing up and ramming his vehicle repeatedly until the jaws of life couldn't extricate him from the mangled wreckage. Not that I would ever want to do something like that *coughcough*, but in that case I would be found to have acted purposefully and wilfully to cause my ex's death. And that, my friends, would be capital murder.

So here we have a bunch of different scenarios, all with the exact same terrible result for the victim, all of which differ in their degree of criminal culpability. Only two of these scenarios would qualify as murder, and in three I have committed no crime at all.

So here we have the crux: any situation in which one person kills another is a homicide, but not all homicides are crimes, and not all criminal homicides are considered murder. Whether a homicide is considered murder or not, depends entirely on mens rea--the "guilty mind".

I have often asserted in my arguments online that just because someone feels they have been wronged or harmed by another, this does NOT necessarily mean a crime was committed against them. And by extension, a man should never be considered to have raped a woman if he did not have the necessary mens rea--that is, if he did not actually realize he was raping her.

I am often told in response that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but ignorance of the law has very little to do with mens rea. In the case of rape, mens rea is not a question of whether someone knows that forcing an unwilling woman to have sex is rape, it is a question of whether someone is aware they are forcing an unwilling woman to have sex.

But how could a person not know they are forcing an unwilling woman? How could anyone not realize that a woman who isn't consenting is not consenting?

Well, how about if you're naked in bed, engaging in the preliminaries of sex, for which said woman seems enthusiastic, and at no point during the festivities does the woman ask you to stop? 

Early anti-rape campaigns focused on a phrase I could really get behind: "No means no." But things have morphed a little since then, into an attitude of, "Anything but an enthusiastic and oft-repeated 'yes' means no."

I have been cautioned by so many people on feminist boards about how very very important it is for a man to check in frequently with his partner, that many women simply don't have the wherewithal to say "no" if they change their minds, but that this does not mean they are consenting. That women have been known to freeze up and the first sign a man might have that he's raped her is the sound of her quietly sobbing after the fact. Oddly, I hear very little talk about how very very important it is for a woman to actually have the maturity to say "no" if, indeed, she means "no", before she climbs naked into a man's bed, however. She, apparently, has no responsibility toward her partner, to prevent him from inadvertently doing something he'd likely feel terrible about afterward. 

Considering how differently women are wont to behave during sex, it is unreasonable to expect a man to conclude that loud moaning, say, can be translated as "please stop", or that a lack of loud moaning can be translated as "please stop", or that twisting and writhing can be translated as "please stop", or that a lack of twisting and writhing can be translated as "please stop", or that a grimace can be translated as "please stop", or that the lack of a grimace can be translated as "please stop", etc.

So here we have a woman who has changed her mind, and is counting on her body's signals and her facial expressions to convey this message to her partner, who may have never engaged her in sexual activity before. Because she lacks the wherewithal to actually tell him to stop, and believes he should just...well, he should just be able to tell. The man is on top of her, arguably holding her down, but in his mind he's just holding her tightly the way his other partners liked him to do.

That the sex was, indeed unwanted, is a fact not in dispute. The feelings of the woman may include violation, trauma, fear, anger, and a deep sense of having been wronged. These feelings are in no way invalid.

However, for the crime of rape to have occurred requires both actus reus (the act of unwanted sex itself) and mens rea (some form of criminal or guilty mind or intent). For the above scenario to be rape, and a crime, the rapist would have to KNOW that he was subjecting the woman to unwanted sex. And if the first clear sign that she'd changed her mind is her quiet sobbing after the fact, well...this is unfortunate, and a terrible situation (both for the woman, who may well be traumatized, and for the man who unintentionally traumatized her) but it isn't a crime. It is NOT RAPE.

And this is one major issue I have with data on rape presented in studies like Ms. Magazine's infamous "1 in 4" survey. Because those studies conflate "unwanted sex" the actus reus that constitutes only half of a crime, with "rape", something that requires both the actus reus of unwanted sex AND mens rea. 

Claiming that 1 in 4 college women are victims of rape or attempted rape based on one-sided accounts that conform to specific sexual scenarios is analogous to publishing a report on how many capital murders occurred in the US in a given year, and including accidental homicides, manslaughters, homicides where the killer was mentally incompetent, self-defence killings, negligent homicides, and second degree murders in your tally.

The Ms. study did give mens rea a "nod", if you will, by asking respondents who'd been subjected to unwanted sex to contextualize what they believed had happened to them. A full 49% of respondents characterized what had happened as "miscommunication". This would make the unwanted sex in those cases an unfortunate, but not criminal, act. In those respondents' opinions, the perpetrators did not have the required mens rea to have committed rape, because they were unaware that the respondents were unwilling. And perhaps, being there at the time, the respondents were more in a position to assess the behavior and motivations of their "attackers" than the surveyors were.

However, the author of the study disregarded these interpretations and applied the term "rape" or "attempted rape" to every incident of unwanted sex where some degree of force was used, such as holding a woman down. And this might be reasonable, if not for the typical mechanics of sex, which often involve, well...a man holding someone whilst simultaneously being on top of them.

Ahh, you might say, but in the Ms. study, about half of the findings of rape and attempted rape involved alcohol or drugs, "administered" to the woman before sex. Here again, I have some issues. Because in the dating and hook-up scenes on campuses, there's a lot of booze consumed by women, often gleefully provided by young men hoping to grease the wheels of sex. I have some serious doubts as to whether these young men are holding women down and pouring liquor down their unwilling throats. I also have a hard time seeing scores of sober young men pressuring women to drink in the hopes that they will become incoherent and sloppy enough as to be unaware of her surroundings and unable to resist, much less participate in the anticipated sex.

So we have college parties where everyone--male or female--is drinking like mad, all looking to shed their inhibitions, have a great time and maybe hook up with someone.

And while providing a woman with enough free beer to drop a rhino may be self-serving on the part of the young men involved and in no way entitles them to sex, I can't help but think that if these women are somehow unaware that alcohol consumption lowers inhibitions (even sexual ones *gasp!*), and that consuming enormous quantities may lead them to consent to things they would never do while sober, they probably do not belong in college in the first place.

So let's explore the role of alcohol in the crime of rape. Let's be true to the criminal code and say one's own willful intoxication is no defence, and let's be totally wacky and hold both genders to an equal standard of accountability.

Young man pours young woman several beers. Young man is unabashed in his motive to get said woman buzzed enough that her judgment will be impaired and he may get lucky as a result. Said woman drinks those beers looking to get wasted, because getting wasted doesn't just feel good--it frees her up to do things that she wouldn't while sober, but that she kinda sorta wants to do sometimes and might just do if not for those pesky inhibitions.

So let's say she's drunk but coherent, and he is equally drunk but coherent, and both of them willingly engage in sex. In the morning, she rolls over and realizes she just fucked Ron Jeremy's less suave cousin, and she can hardly even remember how it happened. She's lying there, thinking, "OMG, he got me drunk on purpose so he could take advantage of me--that's RAPE!"

Well, yes it is. Sort of. If one can wrap one's head around the idea that pouring a woman a few beers is the precipitating act proving an intent to commit rape, rather than a generous application of socio-sexual lubricant. I mean, it's not like he slipped her a date-rape drug. He gave her alcohol, which she willingly drank. If his intention when pouring her those beers was to get her so wasted that her level of intoxication would "seal the deal" and guarantee sex, whether she wanted it or not, then yeah. Rape. But if his intention was to grease the wheels in the hope that she might climb onto his lap and engage in consensual sex with him, has he really done anything wrong? Because at that point, we would have to conclude that any man who buys a woman he desires a few drinks has the intent to rape, don't we? Again, it's all about mens rea--the guilty mind.

However, even if we conclude that any consensual sex while falling-down drunk is rape, we must consider the corollary of drunk driving. Charging a sober man with rape because a woman consented to have sex with him while she was drunk would be analogous to holding the sober driver at fault in a collision with a drunk driver.

And if they're both drunk? Though a legal argument may be made that she was too drunk to be capable of consent, well, so was he, wasn't he? And though a legal argument may be made that a criminal's willful intoxication is no defence for having committed a crime...if we are to keep to our completely nutty theme of holding both parties to the same standard of accountability, both parties would be rapists under the law, and both would be accessories to the other's perpetration of rape. 

This much should be clear. If intoxication vitiates consent but does not eliminate criminal culpability, then even enthusiastic, consensual drunk sex is a crime--one which two people participated in. If one's own willful intoxication is no defence...well, if she said "yes" while drunk, she participated in the commission of a crime, and is an accessory. Hell, one could argue that her consuming enough alcohol to become so drunk that her inhibitions would be lowered was an act of intent to become an accessory to rape.

Regardless of who feels more harmed by the situation, when both parties are drunk, both parties are equally culpable. Charging a traumatized woman with rape and accessory to rape would be no more unjust than charging a man with the same, even if both had the required mens rea to commit the crime of having sex while too intoxicated to consent. 

And this is where the alcohol/drug rape definition departs from reality. Because if we are to criminalize drunk sex, both parties should be charged even if both are pleased with the outcome the next morning, since consent must occur contemporaneously with the sexual acts performed--neither advance consent nor consent after-the-fact are in any way defensible legal concepts. And if one cannot legally consent to sex while drunk, then one cannot legally consent to sex while drunk. 

And if the woman was drunk and consented, and the man was NOT drunk? Her drunken "yes" still technically makes her an accessory to a criminal act. By consenting to sex while drunk, she was engaging and participating in criminal activity, and her own willful intoxication is no defence.

A crime is a crime is a crime, even if no one was harmed by it, right? And the only way to avoid criminalizing the act of ANYONE saying "yes" while drunk is to hold both genders to the same standard of accountability for their decisions while drunk. 

That is, to maintain the definition of rape as the conscious, intentional and willful forcing of sex on a clearly non-consenting person. 

And if that is the only rational definition of rape that can possibly be enforced without applying differing standards of legal culpability and differing standards of conduct on people solely based on what reproductive parts they have, then when it comes to rape as a crime, it is ALL ABOUT mens rea. In which case, incidents of unwanted sex based on a woman's consumption of alcohol/drugs or specific scenarios that do not take into account the intent of the "attacker", cannot be described as rape.

Just like a car accident can't be called murder solely because someone died, not every incident of unwanted sex can be characterized as rape. 

Yet we do this constantly. When it comes to rape and rape alone, the legal requirement of mens rea as one half of the definition of a crime is utterly ignored, by feminists, by "experts" and, increasingly, by the law--but only when it comes to women and victimhood. And why? To protect women from their own decisions, from their lack of honesty and maturity, and from the consequences of their own irresponsible behavior.

In other words, reduce them to the level of children under the law, incapable of behaving responsibly or standing by their own choices and actions--whether it is a choice to fuck while drunk or the decision to engage in sexual activity while emotionally incapable of uttering the word "no". 

How on earth can this not be seen as misogynistic? 

How Feminism Hates Women

Part One: Rape.

It's not that far back on the timeline of civilized human existence that noted feminist writer and anti-pornography activist, Andrea Dworkin penned one of her most controversial works--Intercourse. In it, she posited that sexual intercourse--as influenced by culture, patriarchal oppression and pornography--is "the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women..."

Now don't get me wrong. There are a lot of negatives about pornography, and these negatives play out among both men and women. Body image issues abound, just like they do with any air-brushed, pancake-made-up entertainment industry, the recent trend in genital grooming through bikini and brazilian waxing and even labiaplasty being one, and another evidenced by the plethora of "male enhancement" drug ads that find their way into my spambox. Yet another is humorously addressed in this article at cracked.com, which blandly asserts (correctly) that porn sex isn't "real sex". I've even gone so far as to warn my 16 year-old son that what plays to the camera ain't always what feels good.

And don't get me wrong, I'm willing to admit there are misogynist men out there, and that their misogyny is as likely to express itself through their sexual activities as it is in their speech and public behavior.

However, with respect to Ms. Dworkin's (and other feminists') insistence that porn "trains" men to rape...I can't help but conclude that this theory has been soundly debunked--by none other than the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which reports that rape has been on the decline to the tune of something like 90% since 1979.

Remember, this is an era where porn rocketed out of inaccessible, skeezy XXX theaters and 8mm film reels to become more available than ever, through home VCRs and the internet. This was also a period during which rape shield protections have made it less painful than ever for women to report their rapes, and concurrent with a healthy (or unhealthy, depending on your POV) hook-up culture where more young women are putting themselves in sexual situations with men they hardly know than ever before. And while no one has been able to conclusively prove that the now-universal availability of porn is what's actually put the kibosh on rape, it's hard to give any credence to the predictions of Dworkin et al., who in the 70s forecast nothing but rape rape rape all over the place if men, en masse, were allowed to regularly watch people humping in movies.

But contrary to the findings of our friends at the Bureau of Justice, according to many feminist academics and activists, rape is more rampant than ever. In fact, we're living in a whole culture of rape, if you didn't know. And according to the law, they're right. Because the legal definition of consent has been implacably narrowing and the legal definition of rape broadening--largely due to feminist theory and jurisprudence. It would seem that if a predicted epidemic of rape was not forthcoming, the answer (according to some) was to manufacture one, through criminalization of behaviors that had once been considered both normal and legal.

Drunk sex? That's rape, (depending on what gender you are, of course). Touching your partner in her sleep, even at her request? Sexual assault. Nagging, pestering, whinging and cajoling a woman into sex? RAPE.

One of Ms. Dworkin's most pithy quotes: "Seduction is often difficult to distinguish from rape. In seduction, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine."

And another: "No woman needs intercourse; few women escape it."

It is no wonder, considering her entire body of work, that many of her critics have accused her of characterizing all heterosexual sex as rape. When seduction is synonymous with rape, and sexual intercourse something women must "escape" from...well, this is a completely reasonable assumption. That Ms. Dworkin hated men ought to be self-evident, and that she worked tirelessly to help build a society that would also hate men is a political position that drips from her every printed word, not least her assertion that "making love" is something one can only truly do when one leaves one's gender at the bedroom door. Judging by her lesbianism and her writings, one can guess which gender she's talking about.

Her war was always a war against maleness, and one that was to be fought on every front, even (perhaps especially) in our beds. Victory would only be achieved through the utter desexifying of sex, the entry of the political into our most intimate relations, a society where someone other than the individuals involved sits in clinical judgment of what politically sanctioned activities you're permitted to engage in to get your rocks off.

And we're on our way there, for sure. At least, this attitude is what the law is beginning to reflect as the state pushes its inexorable way back into our bedrooms.

Now if I was self-absorbed enough, I'd go into detail on how the sex life Ms. Dworkin and the law approve of is patently not the sex life I want. A sex life of my partner asking my permission at every escalation of a sexual encounter, a sex life of sweet, tender reverence on the part of whatever man I'm with, a sex life where gender remains outside the bedroom door, a sex life where fucking doesn't happen, a sex life of always being asked and never told, always having to give and never being taken.

But that's an argument for another day. Today, I'm going to try to explain a few ways feminist discourse and activism with respect to the problem of rape, harms women. The first lies in feminist academia's arbitrary and dismissive attitude toward women's actual experiences to further their agenda of manufacturing a rape epidemic.

Yes, you heard me. Feminist academics dismiss the experiences and perceptions of women. Let's examine one of the most frequently cited studies on rape--the 1985 Ms. Magazine study authored by Mary Koss, which determined, based on a random sample of three thousand, that 1 in 4 college-aged women in the US have been victims of rape or attempted rape. In a paper published three years prior to this study, she characterized rape as "an extreme behavior but one that is on a continuum with normal male behavior within the culture". In other words, rape is not a deviate behavior of certain individuals, but in its essence, just another "normal" expression of male sexuality. Like our late friend Ms. Dworkin, Ms. Koss subscribes to the belief that maleness is not only the root of all rape, but that maleness is synonymous with rape.

In the study, rape was defined as nonconsensual "penetration by a finger, penis or other object." This is an extremely broad definition of rape to begin with--penetration by a finger? Seriously? In addition, the wording of question 8 (the drug/alcohol question), which was responsible for roughly half the findings of rape, was ambiguous to the point of absurdity, something Koss later admitted when pressed by reporters.

But it gets better. Because of all the women determined to have been raped, only 27% considered themselves to be rape victims. Yes, that's right. It was the surveyors, not the respondents, who decided who had been raped and who hadn't.

When corrected for these discrepancies, the number of women in the study who were victims of rape or attempted rape drops to about 1 in 22. Still unacceptable--especially if you're woman #22--but one thing that number won't do is get you all kinds of nationwide press.

Another study done in 1992, by Dr. Dean Kilpatrick, found that 1 in 8 women in America would be the victim of forcible rape at least once in her lifetime. Which is pretty scary, especially for the hordes of women who opted not to enrol in post-secondary education, believing it would keep them safe from all those rampant campus rapists.

In order to avoid the uncomfortable conflict that arose in Koss's study, where victims of rape were apparently in the dark as to the fact they'd been raped (how awkward!), Kilpatrick thought it prudent to omit the question altogether. Yes, you heard me. In a study of how many women have been raped, he didn't think "Have you ever been a victim of rape?" was a pertinent enough question to include in the 35 minute telephone interview. When pressed by reporters from a small, award-winning investigative newspaper, as to why he'd omitted the question in his million-dollar study, his reply was, "If people think that is a key question, let them get their own grant and do their own study."

Except guess what? He'd already done that study--one where he'd explicitly asked respondents whether they had, indeed, been raped. And the number he arrived at? Coincidence of coincidences: 1 in 20. You'll understand how that study didn't land him a spot in Time magazine, whereas his super-scary 1992 study based on the Koss/Ms methodology made him a feminist household name.

Which brings me to the second way feminism's approach to rape harms women: Feminism wants women to believe that rape is so prevalent as to be virtually inevitable. To paraphrase Ms. Dworkin: "No woman needs [rape]; few escape it."

Why would feminism want women to be more afraid than they have to be, if not to pit women against men--potential victims against potential rapists--and to characterize the entirety of male sexuality as a pathology to be cured? That Koss herself posited that rape lay on a "continuum of normal male behavior" tells me that according to her, male sexuality is like cancer--"normal male sexuality" characterized as stage 1, and rape as stage 4, the only difference being the degree of harm done.

That feminism does not apply the same reasoning to deviant female sexual behaviors is telling. Women who commit sexual abuse of children, or who prey on adolescent boys are characterized as victims of patriarchy--the slave who turns herself into her oppressor in self-defence--their deviant behavior thus segregated from [pure, vaunted, innocuous, admirable] female sexuality and tossed into the male camp, where predatory behavior, domination, abuse and rape are all par for the course. Women who rape other women? Acting out the misogyny they've internalized through patriarchal oppression. Women who rape men? They don't exist.

What does all this mean for the average woman? It means confusion, conflict and fear. It means many women walking around afraid of all men, feeling like victims before they are even victimized. It means many women developing a creeping self-hate if they discover a little of the spanky-spanky in bed gets them wet. It means many women being terrified of something that is a lot less likely to happen to them than they've been led to believe. Not because of reality, but because of the feminist theory and activism that has essentially lied to them.

But this is hardly the end of it, because even many sensible pundits still characterize rape as a "uniquely horrible crime", and I've often wondered why that is. What makes rape--absent of any aggravating factors, the simple act of being subjected to nonconsensual sex--"uniquely horrible" when compared to, say, being stabbed, or beaten, or taken hostage, or any number of other forms of assault and violation of our bodily autonomy. What is it that makes us as a society characterize rape as a crime so bad only murder would be worse?

If any of you all have read my piece on slut-shaming and feminism, you'll know I believe rape continues to be viewed as uniquely horrible because of a conflict between sexual liberation and a Victorian view of female sexual honor as a woman's primary asset in life, one without which she is nothing. Back in 1850, the shame and personal devaluation a woman suffered when her sexual honor was gone was very practical and very concrete, and the consequences to her future absolutely dire. It hardly mattered whether her honor was taken by rape or because she had consented to sex. Either way, she had no further value as a woman.

But now, in the 2010s, there is no logical reason for any woman to feel ashamed or devalued as a woman because the "sanctity" of her sexuality was violated--because women's sexuality is no longer considered sacred, and the concept of sexual honor no longer exists in any practical way. Considering how society's views on women who have sex outside of marriage, and of women's value as more than wives and mothers, have changed, a woman's feelings of fear, trauma, violation and victimization associated with rape ought to be similar to those associated with any other form of assault. There is no logical place for shame and loss of self-worth in a world where there is no shame in a woman having sex, and no real-world value placed on her sexual virtue.

Yet this reaction to rape--a reaction that is very real to many women, despite the fact that it has no logical basis--has been allowed to dominate the entire public discourse on rape. In much the same way as discussions concerning routine infant male circumcision are often constrained by requests to speak less frankly out of consideration for the feelings of men who were circumcised as babies, conversations about rape are constrained by demands that everyone walk on eggshells, and that women who "got over" being raped be silent lest we make women who were more damaged by their rapes feel even worse. The result is that when discussing rape and how it effects women, the only permissible dialogue is one of shame, terror and human devaluation. Any frank, open, honest or questioning voices are told to be quiet.

And the fact that this dialogue is reinforced time and again through popular culture's portrayal of rape as both psychologically destroying and sexually shameful for women... it's as if feminism and popular culture not only want women to feel rape is virtually inevitable, something that is bound to happen to them, but that it is, indeed, the worst possible thing that could ever happen to them, that it is so horrendous an assault that it literally must change the way a woman sees herself and her value to humanity, and that she does indeed have something to be ashamed of if she is raped.

Which seems like a horribly cruel thing to do to women. But in radical, modern feminism's war on male sexuality, the women harmed by this deceit and emotional manipulation are merely collateral damage, pawns in the political game, and well worth the sacrifice.

Rape and Slut-Shaming: Feminism's Biggest Hypocrisy

Let's play a little game I remember from watching Sesame Street as a kid. It's called One of These Things is Not Like the Others:

"Just moved into a bad neighborhood? Invest in a good lock, and use it. Wouldn't hurt to get a dog or install a security system, either." 


Wow, great advice, thanks.


"Want a nice stereo for your car? Think about getting one you can remove from the dashboard and take with you when you park your car. And don't forget to stow any valuables out of sight."


Good idea.


"Cars these days have chips installed in the ignition keys. They're super-expensive to replace, but the car won't start without it--a great theft deterrent."


$50 well spent, in my opinion, if it means my car will stay where I left it.


"Heading to the convenience store at night? Those places usually have lots of windows for a reason--it's a good idea to check out who's inside and what they're up to before you go in. Better to err on the side of caution than end up walking in on the middle of a robbery in progress."


Hey, I never really thought about that, but it sounds smart.


"Same goes for using an ATM--always check out who's hanging around, and once you've got your money, stow it and move along ASAP."


Oh, totally.


"Drive defensively. There are plenty of crappy drivers around, not to mention drunks. You don't just want to avoid causing an accident, you want to avoid being involved in one someone else causes."


You're right.


"Phishing scams are big money for fraud artists these days. No matter how legit an email looks, never give out personal info, or use the provided link to do it--always log into your bank's website or your paypal account the usual way."


Only common sense.


"Never buzz someone you don't know into your building. Not even if they claim to be a resident who's lost his keys--if he is, he can contact the landlord."


Yeah, no need to make it easy for burglars to get into the building.


"Oh, and if you want to avoid being raped, you should not dress like a slut. Especially if you're going to a party and there's going to be guys and drinking or drugs. I know you want male attention, but when you seek it out by dressing a certain way, you're can't control whose attention you're attracting--rapists or decent guys."


OMG! You slut-shaming, victim-blaming pig! How dare you tell me how to dress? You should be telling men not to rape women! How a woman dresses has NOTHING to do with rape! Little old ladies get raped! Rape is about power, not sex! I can dress however I want and I should be able to be safe from rape! Telling women they should behave in certain ways to prevent their own rapes is like saying that getting raped is their fault!!! Are you saying if I wear a short skirt I was asking for it??!!! ARE YOU!!???

Did you all spot it? If you need to go back and read through it again, go ahead, I'll wait. If you need help figuring it out (many women seem to need help understanding this kind of thing), all of the quoted bits in blue are advice you might get from a parent, a concerned friend or the police on steps that you, as an individual, can take to minimize your risks becoming a victim of a crime or catastrophe. The typical reactions to this advice are in red.

See it now? No matter what the crime is--whether it's burglary, robbery, fraud, theft, mugging, drunk driving, or sexual assault--there are measures an individual can take to minimize their risk of being victimized. Not only are people willing to spend money on security measures to protect their valuables, they take no offense when concerned individuals educate them on how to avoid being targeted by criminals, or how to make themselves crime-proof enough that a criminal will choose someone else.

Except rape. A woman who reacts benignly at the suggestion that she not walk alone at night in a certain neighborhood to avoid being mugged will often rail against any suggestion that she enact the exact same cautionary measures in order to avoid being raped. She'll insist that any suggestion that she act in the interests of her own safety when it comes to sex crimes is tantamount to blaming victims and shaming sluts. While she can reconcile the notion that locking your doors does not make a burglar any less a criminal, while she can understand that recommending people protect their property will not encourage society to stop taking burglary seriously or place any blame on victims of burglary if they slip up and forget to turn the deadbolt...when it's rape? Don't anyone even hint that women could take steps to minimize their risks, because that's blaming victims in advance for being raped.

Whaaaa??

So why does this bizarre logical disconnect exist in women? Why do we, as a society, treat rape as a "special crime", one that requires extra-sensitive dialogue, tiptoeing around reality, and an acceptance that the entire onus for preventing rape be placed on rapists, bystanders, popular culture, movies, comedians, and pretty much everyone other than potential rape victims?

The slut-walk, an exercise in pointless bullshit and the dumbest protest ever, tells you everything you need to know. Hordes of mostly young, mostly white, mostly middle class women marched in anger over the slut-shaming, victim-blaming mentality of a Toronto police officer who had the audacity to suggest that women who dress provocatively are at a greater risk of rape. Granted, his wording was tactless and overly blunt, but the knee-jerk reaction to it was telling indeed. The problem feminists seem unable to grasp, however, is that the march itself--as a response to rape-prevention advice--represents one of the deepest hypocrisies of feminism:

The idea that rape is the most horrible, despicable violation anyone can commit against a woman, but that women should never be shamed for being promiscuous.

Think about it. Suspend your emotional center for a moment and read the following with the most logical frame of mind you can muster.

Rape is the unwanted and forcible version of an act women by the millions happily consent to every day under other circumstances. In ~80% of cases rape involves only as much violence as is necessary for a rapist to subdue his victim, and the majority of the time does not result in serious physical injury. Barring the rare severe injury, and the even rarer death, rape's long-term physical consequences (pregnancy and STDs) are largely mitigated by modern medicine.

Yet rape is seen as a greater violation of a woman's bodily autonomy than being severely beaten, which is horrible and a crime no matter who's doing it to you, can lead to life-changing physical consequences like broken bones, spinal cord injuries, paralysis, brain injury, months or years of physical therapy, and, well, serious risk of death.

Why?

Because despite the sexual revolution and despite (and because of) feminism, when it comes to rape women are still living in the 1850s, when Victorian ideals told them that their sexuality was their primary personal asset, and that once it was sullied, most of their value as a human being was gone. Under "patriarchy", a woman's entire virtue lay between her legs, and it went to the first man who stuck his dick there, whether she was willing or not. A women's sexual purity was the responsibility of society, to be protected above life and limb, because a soiled woman was worthless. Therefore rape was the direst of crimes, and women who gave it away willy-nilly were abhorred, shamed and shunned.

Say what you want about patriarchy, at least it was consistent.

But feminism? I don't think they've thought through their views on the sexual revolution and how they simply cannot be reconciled with the way they wish rape to be seen by society and treated under the law.  Because the idea that women who are victims of sex crimes are special, extra-victimy victims and that rape is the worst violation imaginable is rooted in the exact same Victorian morality that slut-shaming is--the idea that a woman's sexual purity is the most important thing she has, and that she becomes valueless once that purity is gone.

Women today may be dipping their toes in the post-sexual-revolution era where a woman's sexuality supposedly has no bearing on her worth as a human being and a woman, where women should be free to explore sex and sexuality however they choose. Yet when it comes to sex without consent, women's other foot is still firmly planted in the fucking 1850s, where a woman's sexual integrity is the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, where rape is the most shameful conceivable violation that can be perpetrated on a woman, and where victims must be treated with kid gloves even before they've been victimized.

And feminism doesn't realize its own hypocrisy on this issue or how much that harms women, or that we can't live in the past and the present at the same time--that treating rape as a "special crime more horrible than any other" is the exact same thing as slut-shaming.

Yeah, you heard me. Treating rape differently than you would treat any other form of assault is the same thing as saying women who sleep around are whores who should be ashamed of themselves and deserve to get treated like shit. Because both of these attitudes tell women their sexual purity is the only part of themselves that's worth a goddamn thing to anyone. If feminism wants to eliminate slut-shaming and open the door for women to be truly liberated in their sexual lives, it needs to treat rape like the simple assault it is rather than a violation of the holiest of holies. It needs to stop perpetuating the notion that half an hour of unwanted sex is in any way worse than being the victim of any other kind of assault. It needs to stop reinforcing the shame victims feel by indulging it with its systemic kid-glove handling of the issues, and allow for frank and open discussion with women as a group, while leaving it to counsellors and therapists rather than society as a whole to help victims reconcile their individual trauma.

Because if feminism is going to force all of society to treat women's sexuality as sacrosanct when they've been sexually assaulted, then society is absolutely justified in shaming women who give that sexuality away to just anyone. Do you see how that works? Doesn't anyone else see how pedestalizing rape survivors as the ultimate victims of the most heinous violation ever only reinforces the notion that a woman is merely a sexual object, whose greatest source of self-worth and most important virtue in the eyes of humanity is...well, the state of her sex? That constantly enshrouding every discussion of rape in a suffocating blanket of shame and violation is only telling rape victims they're right in feeling ashamed when they're assaulted, and justifying the assholes of the world who place women's value as sexual objects above every other aspect of their humanity?

If feminism wants women to be able to freely express and explore their sexuality, without shame, in the liberated 2010s, it needs to stop treating women like it's 1850 the moment they've been raped.

You lying liar

Index case:  the case of the original patient (propositus or proband) that stimulates investigation of other members of the family to discover a possible genetic factor. In epidemiology, the first case of a contagious disease.

Remember the movie "Outbreak"? You know--1995, Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, that adorable Capuchin Monkey of "Friends" fame? Remember how emergency medical dudes painstakingly traced--through geographic/epidemiological examination of the outbreak--the evil Motaba hemorrhagic fever virus all the way back to the "patient zero"--that cute little black and white monkey? Oh Marcel, how could you? Bad monkey!

What does all this have to do with Men's Rights, you ask? Well, in a 2000 article published in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, Edward Greer did his own epidemiological study on something MRAs are all too familiar with: the 2% false rape accusation statistic feminists use to defend their stance on the increasing erosion of due process in sex crimes cases. 

You hear it all over the place: "Experts claim that false reports of rape and sexual assault make up no more than 2% of all accusations, which is comparable to the false report numbers for other serious crimes." Or, "According to experts, only approximately 2% of women reporting rape are falsely reporting, therefore the investigative standard should be to believe the accuser and pursue all cases to the full extent of the law." Or, "Because experts agree only 2% of rape reports are false, while at the same time the vast majority of rapes are not reported, prosecuting false accusers will only provide a further disincentive to real victims to report their rapes." 

I have even had the odd feminist in an online discussion express to me that falsely imprisoning a few men is a small price to pay if it means victims of rape will be more likely to report. Never mind the fact that a man falsely convicted of rape is almost guaranteed to become a victim of rape once in prison. A small price to pay, indeed. This is how feminism balances the scales of justice--penalizing a women of a real criminal wrongdoing = net bad for society, while penalizing a man for something he didn't do (and for which he will continue to pay once he becomes someone's bitch in prison) = net good for society.

And it's all based on the "fact" that only 2% of rape claims are falsified.

So where did the 2% statistic come from? According to Greer, who picked through dozens of feminist academic papers and articles, and painstakingly followed the pyramidal pattern of citations they contained to their original source, the statistic originated in a 1975 book by Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. Ms. Brownmiller, in her book, attributed the 2% figure to a speech by Lawrence H. Cooke, Appellate Division Justice, Before the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Jan. 16, 1974.

According to Greer:  "When I contacted the then-judge’s law clerk, and he made  inquiry of all those directly involved in the preparation of Judge Cooke’s speech, their best recollections are that they did not rely upon any report but cannot remember precisely how they did obtain the two percent figure."

So there's no study. No report. No survey. No peer-reviewed examination of any data-set. Just a speech that is itself uncited, quoted in a book written over 35 years ago, then repeated as fact over and over and over throughout feminist academia until the misinformation infects the entire discourse.

Could the 2% false report figure be accurate? Well, depending on who you ask, the real figure is anywhere between 2% and 50%. An Australian study conducted between 2000 and 2003 found that of 815 cases, 2.1% were demonstrated clearly enough to be false that charges were threatened or laid. 

In his 1994 study of one small, urban community where all rape reports were investigated and polygraph tests were routinely offered to both accusers and accused, Dr. Eugene J. Kanin of Purdue University examined almost a decade of rape reports. Disregarding all other factors (physical or testimonial evidence, police findings, etc) and going only by complainants' responses when subjected to or threatened with polygraph testing, the percentage of false reports between 1978 and 1987 was a staggering 41%. 

One critic of Kanin's study--Dr. David Lisak of the University of Massachusetts, Boston--performed his own study, published in 2010 in Violence Against Women, which found a false report figure of 5.9%. Though significantly lower than Kanin's findings, it's still three times higher than the 2% figure we hear so often.

Much of what is believed about the 2% false report figure derives from a time when procedures for dealing with rape cases were very different than they are now. The figure itself originated in a 1974 speech by a NY judge, and may well have reflected reality at the time. What woman would falsely report a rape back in 1974, when victims were routinely put on trial themselves, details of their lives released by the media, and revictimized by the system? And yet, even in a social and criminal environment that stigmatized victims, in a time when they were pitted against a system biased against believing them, a time when victims really were blamed for their own rapes because they dressed like sluts or weren't "good girls" or were otherwise unsympathetic, and the likelihood of being criminally prosecuted for falsely reporting was much greater...even then, according to that NY judge and Susan Brownmiller, 2% of women made false accusations.

Even back then--when a plaintiff's testimony was almost never enough to put a man away, when physical evidence--bruises, vaginal tearing, semen, etc--that a crime had not only been committed, but that it had been committed by the defendant, was required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and when a victim's identity was not protected--the rate of false accusations was, according to Brownmiller and other feminists, about 2%. 

Fast forward to 2011, when erosion of due process is turning sexual crimes into a liability offense, where victims are assumed to be truthful and the onus is increasingly placed on the accused to prove himself innocent. Where accusers' names are withheld by the media, and accuseds' names are routinely released. Where cross-examination of the plaintiff in regard to her sexual history is forbidden. Where evidence of sex is not technically required, let alone evidence of violent or nonconsensual sex. Where false accusers are not to be punished, even when their accusations have been determined to be motivated by malice. Prevailing wisdom still insists that a large percentage of rapes and sexual assaults are going unreported, but can anyone reasonably argue that a woman choosing not to report now is doing so out of fear of not being believed, reluctance to have her life picked apart on the stand, or fear of public shame? And can we still presume that the number of false rape and sexual assault reports remains at a paltry 2%?

When my older two kids were small and my older stepsons would visit, my ex and I used to have a recurring argument whenever a conflict between the kids arose. His assertion was that "little kids don't lie" and therefore when our younger kids pointed the finger at one of their half-brothers, they were to be believed. My contention was that little kids lie like rugs, that empathy and conscience doesn't fully develop until kids are around school age and a four year old will happily let someone else hang for his own crime if it means he doesn't have to swing himself. 

Considering the fact that a percentage of adults wilfully commit crimes--theft, murder, assault, fraud--knowing it's ethically and legally wrong...well, there are people out there who will do whatever is in their self-interest that they feel they can get away with. The more they feel they can get away with it, the more likely they are to do it. This is not rocket science. This is not 4th year psychology. It's fucking common sense.

Should we go back to the days before Rape Shield Laws existed? No. Should some instances of a plaintiff's sexual history be considered during a rape trial? Hell yes, if she has a history of false or unsubstantiated rape accusations. Otherwise, no. Should we protect the identity of the accused? Oh, fuck, yes, at least until conviction, because of the degree of damage a simple accusation, no matter how unfounded, can be to a man's reputation, livelihood and relationships. 

But presuming that women don't and won't lie about rape because...well, because they're women? This is a logical fallacy and a complete departure from reality that astounds me. And basing the criminal justice system's entire approach to sex crimes on the absurd assumption that only 2% of women lie about rape, and that punishing them for lying is irresponsible...this is insanity. 

The Female Privilege Checklist

In discussions of social and legal issues, I have frequently heard feminists (and gays and lesbians and transgendered people and people of ethnic minorities and, well, pretty much any identifiable group) tell others to "check your privilege", especially in cases where other individuals offer viewpoints that differ from accepted norms. 


This can be valuable advice, when it is given in good faith. We should all examine not only the ways in which we are disadvantaged, but take the time to really look at the areas in which we have advantages others do not--even when those advantages are the result of measures taken by the law and society to alleviate a disadvantage. As I told the teenage busboy at work last night when he was complaining the truck his father had given him was several years old, "You should get down on your knees and thank your dad, you ungrateful brat. You know what my teenagers get? $20 shoes and a goddamn bus pass." He was offended at first, but after he thought about it for a while, he realized just how lucky he is and actually thanked me.


However, in almost every instance I see the phrase, "check your privilege," used by a member of a group that is considered to be disadvantaged, it is used to convey victim status in relation to the dissenter, and to shut down all discussion other than that which confirms the group's beliefs. Moreover, they will often insist that because they are disenfranchised by virtue of their membership in the group, there is no way they could also hold privilege due to their membership in the same group. This is so not the case.


Privilege is largely about the real-world consequences of stereotyping and prejudice. Stereotyping and prejudice may be disfavored as a way of determining the true characteristics of a given individual, and thus be a "bad thing"...but at the same time, they don't always result in negatives for the people stereotyped, and when they result in positive effects, many are entirely prepared to take advantage of their privilege. Consider: Asians are likely to be assumed to be bad drivers = negative effect on individuals. Conversely: Asians are likely to be assumed to be good at tech and math = positive effect for individuals in certain contexts, such as when s/he is applying for jobs in these areas.


And while privilege is a complicated thing--affluent, white, straight, well-educated, able-bodied males being "at the top" in most contexts, middle class black males inhabiting a huge gray zone with upper class, white gay males somewhere down the privilege ladder, and mixed race, overweight, disabled, poor, uneducated, transgendered lesbians stuck right at the very bottom...well, it all gets complicated when you start considering just who has more advantages and disadvantages than whom. 


It's a contest these days, and to hear people talk, everyone's vying for the prized spot at the very, very, very bottom. Discussions of race, class, sexuality, gender and gender identity, disability, economic status, education level, all seem to devolve into a bizarre exercise in "one-downmanship", where everyone clamors that they are a more victimy victim than everyone else.


But some things really are black and white--at least they seem so. When considering things like male/female gender privilege, you need only consider the bilateral--that is, how does one play out in relation to the other? That is, what privileges do men enjoy solely due to their gender that women of similar economic class, education level, race, able-bodiedness, sexual orientation, etc etc, do not?


And conversely--and contrary to what many feminists believe--what privileges do women enjoy that men do not, all other things being equal? I was asked by a feminist to provide a list, and I did. She dismissed it as a "failed experiment." But I wonder what all of you might think of my female privilege checklist. Feel free to suggest more in the comments, if you think of any--I'll update the list as necessary.


Women are requested to consider whether they can answer "yes" to these questions:


1) People are likely to assume I am a warm and empathetic person.


2) People are likely to assist me when I must perform a physically arduous task.


3) If my car breaks down or I am otherwise in distress, people will be more likely to stop and help me.


4) If I am being physically assaulted, no matter the gender of my assailant, it is more likely that passersby will intervene.


5) People are likely to assume I am a competent parent, unless and until I prove otherwise.


6) People are more likely to respect my right to be offended by inappropriate or impolite behavior.


7) If I yell, people are not likely to believe I am going to hurt them.


8) Dress codes in the workplace and in leisure contexts are more likely to allow me to choose clothing that emphasize my most attractive features and minimize those I am unhappy with.


9) I am allowed by society to wear make-up to make myself more attractive without anyone questioning my sexual orientation. I am given a large social leeway in the kinds of hairstyles I can choose that will flatter my facial features.


10) If I work in a profession that is dominated by the opposite gender, people are likely to see it as "heroic", or a sign of social progress, rather than that I am deficient in some way.


11) If I show weakness, the first response of most people will be to console or help me, not criticize me, ignore me, or dismiss me as pathetic.


12) I am not expected to make the "first move" when meeting members of the opposite sex for the purposes of dating.


13) Members of the opposite gender are expected to make the first move; therefore, it is less likely I will be sexually rejected by those I come into close contact with in a dating context.


14) I am not expected to spend a significant portion of my yearly income on a token that accompanies a marriage proposal.


15) I am less likely to be expected to spend a significant amount of money on gifts, tokens, and activities during courtship and dating.


16) If I am having dinner with a member of the opposite gender in a dating context, and I do not reach for the check, people are unlikely to assume I am cheap.


17) If I am having dinner with a member of the opposite gender in a non-dating context, and I do not reach for the check, people are still unlikely to assume I am cheap.


18) If I earn less than my partner, no one will look at me funny.


19) If I earn nothing and my partner supports me, no one will look at me funny.


20) If I am unemployed and my partner is supporting me, people other than my partner are unlikely to pressure me because I am "not trying hard enough" to find employment.


21) If I earn less than my partner, people are unlikely to expect me to contribute equally to our living expenses.


22) If I am skilled in activities/hobbies that are commonly attributed to the opposite gender (kick boxing, operating power tools, shingling a roof, knitting, scrap-booking, floral arranging), people will see me as admirable. No one is likely to think I am a weirdo or wonder if I'm gay.


23) If I am completing a task with a member of the opposite gender, it will be expected that they take the greater physical burden--such as carrying the heavier boxes.


24) If I cry or am hurt, men and women are unlikely to tell me to "suck it up".


25) If I choose to stay at home with my children while my partner works, people are unlikely to think I am a deadbeat, unskilled, or shirking my responsibility to my family.


26) If I choose discontinue, temporarily leave, or reduce my participation in a high-status career in order to spend time at home caring for children, people are likely to consider it a "noble sacrifice" rather than a waste of my talents. 


27) If I work and have a family, my employer will be less likely to require me to work overtime or bring work home with me. This will be the case even if I equally share domestic duties with my partner, or have outside domestic help (housekeeper, nanny).


28) If an employer claims to have "non-sexist" hiring policies, I can assume this to mean that members of my gender will be more likely to be hired, rather than less.


29) If I choose a career in early childhood or elementary level education, or volunteer to work with youth, no one will wonder if it's because I am a pedophile. They will trust me, even if they are aware that members of my own gender can and sometimes do use these positions to facilitate their sexual abuse of children.


30) If I commit a crime against children, even before details come out, people are likely to want to believe I have been falsely accused, was "failed by the system", or was somehow "driven to it" by factors outside my control (such as mental illness, poverty, lack of social services, childhood abuse), because members of my gender "just don't do stuff like that". It is unlikely they will automatically attribute my actions to unprovoked aggression or hold me entirely responsible for them.


31) If I am a victim of domestic violence, there are many services in my community that will help people of my gender. It is unlikely I will be denied services based on my gender.


32) If my partner physically abuses me, I will be believed by the authorities. Their belief will not depend on whether I have physical signs of injury.


33) If I physically abuse my partner, people--including the authorities and victim's services personnel--are likely to assume it was in self defence. Even if I tell them I hit first and my partner is non-violent, they are likely to wonder if my partner did something to instigate the assault, like cheating on me, yelling at me, or otherwise provoking me to lose control.


34) If I physically abuse my partner, and they reciprocate, they are as likely or more likely to be the one arrested as I am, even if my partner's reciprocation was in self-defence.


35) If my partner physically abuses me, and I reciprocate--even if I admit my reciprocation was not in self-defence but out of anger--it is unlikely that I will be arrested.


36) If I am divorced, and my ex-partner earns more than I do, it is more likely I will be awarded spousal support, even if am employed and self-supporting, than if our positions were reversed.


37) If I am divorced, the default assumption in the family court system is that I will have primary custody of my children. This will be the case, even if my ex-partner and I shared breadwinning and childcare duties roughly equally during the marriage.


38) If my ex-partner sues me for custody, they are unlikely to be as successful as I would be were our positions reversed. The burden will be on them to prove I am an unfit parent, rather than that they are more fit, before this likelihood tips in their favor.


39) If I am divorced, I will in almost every case be awarded child support. If my ex-partner does not abide by the terms of the custody/child support order, they will face legal consequences as serious as a prison sentence. They will face these consequences even if their reason for not paying is that their financial situation has changed since the marriage. They will face these consequences even if I do not fulfill my own legal obligations spelled out in the custody order to permit or facilitate their access to my children--my right to distance myself from my ex-partner is likely to take precedence over my children's right to involvement with their non-custodial parent.


40) If I am divorced and my partner is awarded primary custody of my children, I will only rarely be required to pay child support, even if I can afford it. If I am required to pay child support and I do not, for whatever reason, it is unlikely that I will face any legal consequences.


41) If I abuse the legal process during my divorce by obtaining a fraudulent temporary restraining order, misrepresenting my financial status, hiding assets, or otherwise perjuring myself, it is very unlikely I will be charged with a crime. In fact, my abuse of the legal process--even after it has been discovered by the court--is likely to benefit me in matters such as custody. Moreover, "the good of the children" will be treated as a reason to not penalize me monetarily--such as by reducing my share of joint assets.


42) If my ex-partner abuses the legal process in the above ways, they are more likely to be penalized criminally by being charged, or monetarily through reduction of their share of our joint assets. 


43) If I have consensual sex with my partner and we are both underage, and a charge of statutory rape is filed, I will never be the one charged. This will be the case even if I pressured my partner to have sex and they objected.


44) If I am raped by a member of the opposite gender, and I am not below the age of consent, no one will tell me such a crime does not exist.


45) If I am raped by a member of the opposite gender, knowledgeable members of the medical and criminal justice communities are unlikely to consider my body's involuntary and automatic responses to sexual stimuli as "proof" that I gave consent.


46) If I am the victim of a statutory rape committed by a member of the opposite gender, and it results in a pregnancy, I will have a choice as to what my parental responsibilities to that child will be. I will not be legally required to be financially responsible for a child that results if I have been raped by an adult.


ETA: 

47) irregardless of my parents' culture or religion or any small beneficial side-effects, I am protected by the law from any genital cutting until I am an adult and request it for myself. If I have been cut, my peers will universally agree that I have been a victim of a heinous crime.

48) I can openly state a sexual preference for members of the opposite gender who had significant portions of their genitals removed at birth, and not immediately be called out as crazy by most of society. I can request a sexual partner who has not been cut to become cut for me, and that partner would most likely not immediately leave me.

49) I can cite my own sexual preference for members of the opposite gender who had significant portions of their genitals removed at birth as the sole reason for requesting the same done to my newborn child, and my child's doctor will comply without arguing with me or reporting me to the police. My health insurance will even pay for it.

50) It would be career suicide for a doctor or politician to recommend cutting off significant portions of my genitals to reduce the chance of catching STDs or having other medical problems with my genitals.

51) There's little debate as to whether or not cutting my gender's genitals is bad.


***Please, if anyone wants to add more items, just let me know in the comments, like Beanie Appa did. This list is a work in progress. :)


When I proffered some of the second half of this list in an online discussion, one feminist scoffed, "Women's privilege is exclusively when we are raped, physically abused, or divorced? Wow, lucky me."


What feminists--and many groups claiming disadvantage in whatever area--don't seem to consider is that privilege is an inherently oppositional and proportional concept. In order for men, for instance, to have male privilege in a specific context, it requires that women's disadvantage in that context be in opposition in relation to that privilege. If everyone had equal status under the law and in the eyes of society in relation to each other, even if our circumstances were terrible, no one would be more privileged or disadvantaged than anyone else, right? Privilege of one group requires the disadvantage of another. And when you have gender privilege, it is the other gender that is, perforce, disadvantaged.


Feminists of today still see the wage gap as a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. Feminists believe that the wage gap is a product of sexism in the workplace and unfair social expectations placed on women. The more libertarian view is that it is largely the result of women's choices in regard to work-life and home-life, and that most choices involve prioritizing one thing over another, even if we may desire and value both equally. But whatever you believe, the wage gap has been narrowing and will continue to narrow, because feminists decades ago believed it was a problem, and other people believed them and did something about it.


Feminists may scoff that it's no great shakes to have gender privilege when they are being victimized, raped, beaten or going through the difficult and emotionally devastating process of negotiating custody agreements. I find it quite alarming that they don't seem to be able to look at the situation from the other side. That female privilege, by the very nature of what privilege is, lies in direct, proportional opposition to male disenfranchisement in these very same areas. The greater the female privilege, the greater the male disenfranchisement. And female privilege in these particular areas--sexual assault, domestic violence, divorce and child custody--is HUGE. And in some areas, it's only going to get huger as due process in rape cases erodes at the behest of feminists.


So in these areas where lives are often shattered, where people suffer enormous physical and emotional pain, where their relationships with their partners are dissolved and their lives turned upside down, and the their relationships with their children under threat, where they are charged with crimes or are the victims of them--where they are going through an already horrible experience--these are the very areas where men suffer the greatest disenfranchisement in our society. 

Way, way, way up at the beginning of the post, I mentioned privilege in regard to an Asian applying for a tech job. It's foolish to think that if he beat out a black or white candidate who was better qualified for the job, even if he knows it's due to stereotyping and the privilege that derives from that, that he will he will take the boss aside and say, "Hey, you know, I think that other guy is actually better than me. Just because I'm Asian doesn't mean I'm great at fixing computers. You should probably hire him instead." The more of a positive effect a privilege has on an individual, the less they are inclined to give it up. 


And in horrible situations, like divorce, DV or rape, how likely is any individual to say, "Hey, I think you're making your judgments of the situation based on gender privilege. I'd like you to be more fair to the man I say raped me and respect his due process rights"? How likely is an individual to say, "Well judge, you know, I realize everyone assumes mothers should get custody, and as a feminist I find that stereotypes based on socially constructed gender norms are harmful. So I'd like you to forget all that, even if it means I may lose custody of my children"? How likely is an individual to say, "Listen officer, I actually hit first. Arrest me too, please"?


Individuals take advantage of their own privilege. They do. And they do it all the more when the stakes are very, very high. Feminists--hell, all women--would be advised to consider what it would be like were the gender privilege reversed in these situations, if they suffered the same level of disenfranchisement men currently suffer in cases of rape, DV, and family law. 


If women were assumed by the authorities to be making it up when they make a claim of rape, and predisposed to believe the accuser if they themselves were charged; if women were assumed to always be the aggressor in domestic violence situations and treated accordingly by the law, and if women were turned away from shelters because those shelters only serve DV victims of the opposite gender; if the family court system tore children from their mothers because the default assumption was that custody should go to the father and your rights as a parent--even a weekend one--didn't matter to anyone... ?


If women suffered this obscene and unconscionable level of disenfranchisement in these terrible and potentially life-destroying situations, and weighed it against the current wage gap, which would feminists consider the bigger problem?