rape

Is there a “rape proclivity bubble on a multi-axis quadrant?” try 2

Jason Thibeault, , , , 1 Comment

This is just a repost without all the extra junk that ensued, so I can solicit comments on the post itself. There are very slight alterations, but none that change my point. If you read the other one, no need to reread this one unless you’re looking for a way to post about it without getting entangled (and I honestly hope you do comment… I need your feedback!). If you’re looking for something different to read, Ed Brayton expands Greg’s theme in a different direction, through all the acts of barbarism of which the same example soldiers are capable. Or you could read one of Greg’s follow-ups on the topic admonishing those that make the topic about themselves, that it’s not about them (unless they happen to be women being victimized by roaming bands of soldiers).

But whatever else you do, go here to do something positive and support the Silence is the Enemy campaign.

—

Greg Laden, as you may already know, recently postulated a hypothesis regarding the possibility of a “rape switch” — a set of circumstances in which soldiers are significantly more likely to rape members of the local population — that rang true with him. The idea originally came from one of his students’ term paper written in 1993. Discussion of the topic has been heated, to say the least, and I’ve been throwing more than my fair share of wild punches in the fray. This is just an attempt to put together a number of them into something more cohesive (and coherent) now that a lot of the rage has subsided. I will attempt to avoid or ameliorate those sticking points that drew so much of everyone’s off-topic ire, and I’ll even try to make up for a number of misconceptions I myself had in coming into the argument to begin with.

Continue reading “Is there a “rape proclivity bubble on a multi-axis quadrant?” try 2″ →

Is there a “rape proclivity bubble on a multi-axis quadrant?” try 2
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Is there a “rape proclivity bubble on a multi-axis quadrant?”

Jason Thibeault, , , , , 76 Comments

Greg Laden, as you may already know, recently postulated a hypothesis regarding the possibility of a “rape switch” — a set of circumstances in which soldiers are significantly more likely to rape members of the local population — that rang true with him. The idea originally came from one of his students’ term paper written in 1993. Discussion of the topic has been heated, to say the least, and I’ve been throwing more than my fair share of wild punches in the fray. This is just an attempt to put together a number of them into something more cohesive (and coherent) now that a lot of the rage has subsided. I will attempt to avoid or ameliorate those sticking points that drew so much of everyone’s off-topic ire, and I’ll even try to make up for a number of misconceptions I myself had in coming into the argument to begin with.

Continue reading “Is there a “rape proclivity bubble on a multi-axis quadrant?”” →

Is there a “rape proclivity bubble on a multi-axis quadrant?”

“Rape switch”? Or “aggression switch”?

Jason Thibeault, , 3 Comments

I’ve been involved (on and off) in a comment war all day long over at Greg Laden’s, where Greg attempts to explain the plausibility of a “rape switch” that is turned on in men when they are subjected to the trials and expectations of a war zone, and how men in whom this “rape switch” is turned on are then capable of raping the indiginous women where they might not have been previously. A semantic war erupted, where no less than three commenters have driven a counter-offensive against such a sweeping generalization or indoctrinate affront. I personally suggested that the more likely scenario is that war, by virtue of being war, turns on an aggression switch in its soldiers, by the designs of their higher-ups, that these soldiers can’t necessarily channel in an appropriate manner (e.g. by killing the locals), instead resorting to raping the locals’ women.

I’ve been going back and forth with a commenter by the name of Thomas, who seems to have approximated the same “vagispiracy” position that The Real Meme did in my recent Oprah-bashing post. At the time of this post, he has challenged me to provide some citations for my claims; I’m about to attempt to do so, though some of them weren’t made with citations in mind (e.g., I pulled them out of my ass, or Colbert’s favorite fact source, the gut).

I wanted to write a post today about Roguelike games, or get around maybe to writing part two of Blogging the Election, but you get this instead. Enjoy!

“Rape switch”? Or “aggression switch”?

Silence is the Enemy

Jason Thibeault, , , , 2 Comments

There’s a blogging event going on right now, and for the rest of June, started by Sheril Kirschenbaum at The Intersection, in an effort to draw attention to the frequent and widespread rape occurring presently in Liberia. The fact is, rape isn’t a regional or cultural problem — it’s an everywhere problem, and the solution to it requires all of us to participate.

This problem has thankfully not touched me directly (or indirectly, really, as my one experience with rape involves a girl crying wolf), and I’m afraid I don’t have anything to say about it that’s at all insightful. I know I am not capable personally of raping someone, but I am aware that with my inability to navigate social situations, I have had problems all my life distinguishing welcome from unwelcome attention whether on the giving or receiving end, and therefore have likely made more than one girl feel uncomfortable in my lifetime with my fumbling inability to flirt, or hell, even my fumbling inability to make sexual advances on someone who I know would be receptive, like a long-term girlfriend. Though I feel as though I have absolutely no ability to comprehend the actions of men willing to force themselves on others, being barely able to assert myself to any degree even when it’s solicited, I nonetheless feel compelled to do SOMETHING, so I will direct what little traffic I have to the myriad blog posts that have been put up in the past few days on on the subject.

The ScienceBlogs Select RSS tells me all the following blogs have posts on the subject, so I’ll link them now, though I have not yet had time to read all of them:

On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess
Thus Spake Zuska
Sciencewoman
Framing Science
DrugMonkey
Aardvarchaeology
Bioephemera
Aetiology
Neurotopia

A word of warning, many of these blogs are considered safe havens for women and thus those of you who happen to be swinging pipe would be well advised to lurk before posting, if posting at all. And remember that the only thing separating you from rapists is that you are likely neurotypical (e.g. not batshit insane), and you were likely brought up in a society that frowns upon men forcing themselves on women.

On other blogs on my RSS feed which I subscribe to specifically (as opposed to the ScienceBlogs Select feed), there are more blog posts you should read along the same lines. Here’s Greg Laden’s discussion entitled A Rape in Progress, and its Part 2. He also links to Women’s eNews where a connection is drawn between rape and conflict mineral mining. Stephanie Zvan wrote a brilliant article over at Quiche Moraine entitled Legacy of War where she delves into the first casualty of any war: civilization itself. And finally, and most certainly always worth a read, is DuWayne Brayton at Traumatized by Truth.

Hopefully that’s enough reading material to get you through the night. All of these blogs are going to be posting throughout the month on the topic, so visit them as frequently as you can manage. (I’m often late posting stuff because of information overload — I follow far too many blogs and far too much catches my eye.)

Silence is the Enemy

This one’s gonna be raw. Lots of naked Jason, and not the good kind. You are warned.

Jason Thibeault, , 19 Comments


UPDATE April 10th, 2015
Content note: rape, consent, false accusations

Seeing as how people — Slimepitters, mostly, but all manner of ne’er-do-well — keep dredging this story up to pick at the scars, which have long since healed over (I blogged this six years ago, after all), I want to clarify a few things.

First, I don’t believe in the “friend zone”. I did, at the time, before I came to understand that is a construction to make “I’m not interested in you” some sort of sin, and before the term existed I was very much in danger of becoming one of those self-entitled and whiny “nice guys”. I also don’t, after reflection, think that the fact that this ex-girlfriend

Second, I absolutely maintain that this episode was formative in my understanding of rape and sexuality, and it created in me a literal phobia of abridging someone else’s consent, to the point of causing me issues with my partners.

Third, I wrote this piece partly for catharsis, and mostly intended it to be a reflection on my lack of understanding of traditional gender roles. I don’t know how to “be a man”.

Fourth, if somehow this story makes you worried about being around me, if it makes you want to dissociate yourself from me out of fear that I actually did rape my first girlfriend twenty years ago, do so. You don’t owe me anything. Do whatever you need to do to protect yourself, I will not mind.

Many have attacked me for my stance, using this story as their ammunition — MRAs and TERFs and antifeminists determined to attack feminists over some sort of imagined overreach on the topic of rape. I take this stand knowing full well that they mostly attack me because, by rights, I should have become a Men’s Rights Activist myself. I should have, if their narrative actually holds true, become one of them, attacking feminists for daring to talk about rape as a serious crime despite myself being victim of a false rape accusation. Though exceedingly rare (especially when you consider only the ones that make it to the cops’ ears), false rape accusations do actually happen — they are not entirely a myth, but they are certainly nowhere near as prevalent as MRAs would have you believe.

Most of my life, I’ve had no idea what it means to “be a man”. I mean, I’m heterosexual, I have a penis, I can open jars, like to tinker with electronics or recently woodworking, and I exhibit a number of traits that might be stereotypically intrinsic to males (f’r instance, I suck at navigation, especially if I’ve never been someplace before). But when you hear exhortations from just about everyone from your father to kids on the playground to (of all things) girlfriends, to “be a man”, and you just can’t parse the suggestion much less actively try to change yourself for it, it makes life, and navigating gender roles in today’s society, a little difficult.
Continue reading “This one’s gonna be raw. Lots of naked Jason, and not the good kind. You are warned.” →

This one’s gonna be raw. Lots of naked Jason, and not the good kind. You are warned.

… and your Pope, too.

Jason Thibeault, 1 Comment

I was seriously considering praising the Vatican for their recent decision to accept evolution, much like they did in 1992 with Galileo’s heliocentric theory a few hundred years after expelling him from the country, in light of the fact that disproving all the available evidence is a task better suited for God and since He’s obviously not interested in doing so, it must be right. However, something stayed my hand (Goddidit?), and now I’m glad I didn’t post anything laudatory about those monsters.

RIO DE JANEIRO – A 9-year-old girl who was carrying twins, allegedly after being raped by her stepfather, underwent an abortion Wednesday despite complaints from Brazil’s Roman Catholic church.

My problems with this include a) the fact that they didn’t actually complain until AFTER the girl had the abortion, thus allowing them their petty moral outrage without actually preventing this girl from getting this necessary medical procedure; b) the Catholic church’s stance on abortion implies that the life of the rapist’s potential offspring blastocyst is more important than the life of the raped woman; c) a woman’s role is nothing more than a baby factory; d) “allegedly” raped?  Like a nine year old had consensual sex that led to her being knocked up?; and e) despite having endured the hardship of being raped, possibly repeatedly, by her own stepfather, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH STILL HAD TO STICK THEIR FUCKING NOSES IN!

Fuck you, Catholic Church.
Fuck you, Catholic Church.

Update: Hat tip to PZ… Holy fucking shit! Those sons of bitches have now excommunicated everyone involved in the abortion but the child! Evidently, not excommunicating the child herself is some measure of “mercy” on her in their eyes.

… and your Pope, too.

Critical thinking, evolution, and how to not be dismissed as a total idiot

Jason Thibeault, , , , , , , 6 Comments

As you’ll likely recall, I had planned a post about Darwin pareidolia.  I have about twenty tabs open in my Firefox right now, most of which having something or other to do with this, but the remainder are actually sort-of related to this, to pareidolia in general, and to the creationism v. evolution debate.  To make matters worse for my ability to focus on this topic, the other day, a co-worker and potential lurker messaged me on instant messenger regarding the Large Hadron Collider.  The gist of this conversation went something like:

<him> hey, have you heard of the LHC?  sounds like a bad idea to me.

<me> *rants for 30 mins about how stupid people are for thinking it’s a bad idea, barely letting him get a word in edgewise*

There’s definitely going to be another blog post in the future about the LHC, especially specifically about the doomsday sayers and the impossibility of their hypothesized scenarios (none of which have any basis in science outside of the fact that the doomsday scenarios themselves have a kernel of scientific truth — like, say, making a black hole, which the LHC is completely incapable of doing outside of micro black holes that evaporate instantly).  But for now, I’m going to point out that the funny thing about this is that there’s a common thread in these topics — people’s inability to perform simple feats of critical thinking.

Continue reading “Critical thinking, evolution, and how to not be dismissed as a total idiot” →

Critical thinking, evolution, and how to not be dismissed as a total idiot

Excellent.

Jason Thibeault,

We went over the numbers again, checking out different scenarios and taking into account some expenditures and incomes we hadn’t considered in our original budget for trying to scrape together the down payment on the house.  As it stands, we will have all but $500 on the 3rd of August, meaning we could move the closing date back a week (to the 18th) without taking a hit.  So, we’re going to be depending on selling one of the computers.  My father actually volunteered to give me $500 from his vacation pay when I spoke to him last month — bless his heart — but I refused then.  I’m considering borrowing it from him until one of the computers goes, or, if they don’t, then paying it back over time.  That $500 is the last piece of the puzzle, barring any unforeseen costs over the next month.

In short… excellent.  Everything’s working out perfectly.

As for this blog, I hope to put a bit more effort into the Computer and Games sections relatively soon, hopefully once I get most of the house-related business squared away — I especially want to talk about Sam and Max at some point.  I’ve been intending to put up a tribute to George Carlin since his death, especially regarding how the media has completely ignored most of his actual oeuvre, mentioning only his pushing the boundaries of profanity in this love-fest they’ve been giving him.  I also have a few introspection posts planned, including some of my history, and my thoughts on creation, evolution, existence, and other big scientific questions that for some reason I think I’m an authority on despite millenia of intelligent people failing utterly at answering them.  This is all assuming I can get my thoughts together coherently enough to bother publishing them.

Then again, if you want eloquence, you’re looking in the wrong place.  I never finished my English degree.

Excellent.

I’m doing the unthinkable.

Jason Thibeault

That’s right.  I’m selling my comic book collection.

51 comics from my early teens, mostly Superman and Spiderman, but some oddities I had picked up over the years like Ralph Snart, the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Jurassic Park comic-izations, and even a Bugs Bunny comic from 1978 that’s apparently worth $8 near-mint.  A shame the comic is decidedly not mint.  “Fair” or “Good” tops; I dunno, those comic ratings elude me.  I looked through Comics Price Guide and found that most of them are worth $3 near-mint, and a lot of them are likely in that good of a condition.  I’m planning on taking the lot of them down to the comics store in Wolfville to see what kind of price I can get for them… I’m hoping $75.

This is, of course, entirely toward the end of financing my down payment on a house.  The mortgage is doable, however the money for the down payment is problematic.  I have to somehow scrape together just about seven grand by fifteen days before the closing date that we agree upon, that is if this all goes through.  I have a bunch saved up, and I have some resources I can tap, but if it all works out, it’ll be tight for a while.  And by tight, I mean we’ll be eating peanut butter sandwiches and Mr. Noodles for the foreseeable future.

I’ve already converted my “oops-I-forgot-my-lunch” stash of work food from the usual soups and granola bars and such, to a loaf of bread and peanut butter.  And I have every intention of eating leftovers and rice and such to stretch our food budget as long as I can.  Bachelow Chow, here I come!  I’ve got a house to buy, dammit, and I’m going to do it!

I’m doing the unthinkable.