Avicenna has a horrific post about rape in India.
His conclusion:
The anger is rising again in India. It doesn’t matter what laws you make. In order to stop rape you need to change the culture of India and empower women. You need to teach men to not rape women, not blame everything else. The real fault here lies in the rapist and a culture of harassment, denigration of women and rape. The protests will keep happening and they SHOULD. Society cannot afford complacency on this.
There are no excuses here. Culture Must Change. You aren’t going to protect girls by keeping them away from boys. You are going to protect them by teaching boys and girls responsible behaviour and how to treat each other properly. Teach boys to respect women and not rape them. Teach girls and boys that No Means No, not No Means Try Harder. These young kids think like that because they have no adult role models to sit them down and tell them that. What they have instead are movies which are made by people who themselves think “No means Try Harder” and who have never had to date either. It’s like taking sex advice from the Pope.
But if people are taught that No Means No then no one will ever have sex again ever ever ever.
“But if people are taught that No Means No then no one will ever have sex again ever ever ever.” ??
Does that rule out teaching them at the same time that Yes Means Yes?
That was sarcasm; it’s also a real BS argument that gets pulled out regularly by the pro-harassment brigade. “But if women don’t submit to random groping and come-ons, the human race will die out!” (I can find links if necessary. …I’d really rather not have to.)
Pteryxx:
It is only by twisting logic that that “real BS argument” can be fashioned out of what I said.
I suggest that if ‘No’ is to mean ‘No’, then the only statement , act or whatever that can mean ‘Yes’ is ‘Yes’. Or its unambiguous equivalent.
Shouldn’t be hard to organise on the one side, or to recognise on the other.
Ian:
Pteryxx is not claiming that you are making a BS argument.
Pteryxx is noting that, while Ophelia is making the claim sarcastically, real people have actually, without irony, made statements to the effect that “But if people are taught that No Means No then no one will ever have sex again ever ever ever”.
It is that claim, when made earnestly, which Pteryxx is categorizing as BS.
^ Yes, that. Thanks.
I always wonder at men who think they need to treat women abominably in order to “have sex” – I put in the quotes because surely sex is something you share, not something you have. Hasn’t it ever occurred to such men that if only they took the trouble to behave like decent human beings they might have surprisingly little problems in that department?
One excellent rule IMHO is never to speak elliptically when you wish to communicate something important.
A minor quibble: “No means no” isn’t the only rule we want people to have in mind.
A teacher somewhere recounted discussing Steubenville and finding that many students thought it wasn’t rape because the girl didn’t say no. The message ought to be that anything short of enthusiastic consent is unacceptable.
Another excellent rule is to be familiar with a blog’s culture and the context in which issues are discussed, if you want to participate in the conversation.
Hmm. Ian, you’ve been reading me for a very long time (which I suppose must mean you enjoy doing so, unless you’re a reading-masochist!). I would think you would know I have a habit of speaking elliptically.
Quite.
Pteryxx is noting that, while Ophelia is making the claim sarcastically, real people have actually, without irony, made statements to the effect that “But if people are taught that No Means No then no one will ever have sex again ever ever ever”.
Nevergetlaidophobia seems rife in some atheist discussions. I think I counted 4 assertions, during that Elevator incident of which we will never speak again (please), that the human race would die out if men were expected to refrain from propositioning women they don’t know IN ELEVATORS at conventions. (And this is just on Rebecca’s threads on Skepchick alone, if anyone wants to dive back down into the quotable murk.)