The best part of this interview with James Taranto is watching the expressions of the women doing the interviewing. You can tell they’re struggling to maintain a professional attitude while dealing with this lunatic hunk of slime.
The social purpose of marriage is to control men.
I’m actually quite fond of women. You can call me Tarantosaurus sex.
Women can have sex without the fear of pregnancy, just like men can.
And this is a bad thing?
Excuse me. I have to go drink a quart of epicac right now. I could just go read the Wall Street Journal, I suppose, but guzzling a potent emetic would have the same effect, and be less painful to my brain.
(via TBogg.)
Isn’t that video an auto-emetic?
Myers thinks Taranto is a “hunk”?
The Trophy Wife™ better get all she can, while she can…
The look on the journalist’s face is priceless.
He rejects the label “misogynist”? Hell, he-äs a textbook example if there ever was one…
OUCH! Serious, serious headdesk.
I had to stop watching halfway through. What an asshole.
Remember the good ol’ days when women really controlled men? You know, while being the property of their husbands? The problem is clear, all of this freedom really reigns in their ability to control men. So thanks, feminists. See what you have done to poor poor men? It isn’t their fault. How can it be if they can’t own you and have control over you?
Are you fucking kidding me?
I’m male. I’m sexual. Very sexual. My sexuality is in no fucking way tied to sexual assault. Rape isn’t my sexuality. Fuck this guy in the ear with a very squidgy dog turd. May he step on Lego for all eternity and may his peepee shrivel further than it has already.
Don’t get me wrong what he says about women is bad, but dudes, letting shit stains like this represent us is criminal! It ain’t the feminists that say “all men are rapists” it’s misogynist fucks like this. Listen to him fucking say it!
Hot damn. I need booze. And possibly crack. Minimum.
Louis
Did this idiot hook up with WSJ before or after they got bought by FauxNewsCorp?
So, he rejects the label misogynist, but he seems to be arguing that women are inately inferior to men, that women possessing the ability to control their own fertility is a bad thing, and that codes of conduct intended to protect women from sexual harrassment and rape amount to the ‘criminalisation of male sexuality’.
So either he really doesn’t have a clue what the word ‘misogyny’ actually means, or he is such an arrogant arsehat that he really believes he has the power to arbitrarily redefine the term so that it is narrow enough that his own clear fear of and hatred for women doesn’t qualify, and so ultimately the term is rendered entirely meaningless.
He really does tick all the boxes of the misogynist bingo card, right up to and including that hoariest of sexist chestnuts ‘I don’t hate women; I like having sex with them, so I can’t be a misogynist!!11!!!Eleventy!’
He actually seems to think that is somehow charming, rather than a putrid broth of equal parts bigotry and stupidity.
Anyone with even the meanest understanding of the history of the marriage social construct knows that Taranto has got this exactly arse backwards. In many cultures marriage originally functioned as a transfer of ownership of a woman, who have historically usually been considered chattel in most patriarchal societies, from her father or other male relatives to another man, often as part of a broader economic or politcal transaction.
So, is Taranto and idiot, a bigot, or a liar? I am going to tick the box marked ‘all of the above’.
Ooh! Ooh! Pick me, teacher! Pick me!
Well, he clearly has a brain the size of a walnut…
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
HE IS TERRIBLE.
Like…stop talking. Stop.
So historically, when men cemented social and business relationships with other men by handing over their daughters into marriage…..that was women controlling men.
Well see what happened was Taranto got drunk at the golf course and passed out in the locker room and you know what happened to him while he was out so naturally he considered it to be partially his fault for drinking so much.
I love it when he says “Mary, you must have wondered yourself why I’m not married.” And her look says “Not for one second. Please get me a bucket.”
I would also like to second the sentiments of Louis @ 6 – I do not recognise Taranto’s description of male heterosexuality at all. I do not accept for one moment that to be a heterosexual man is to automatically be a rapist in waiting as this grossly misogynist* arsehole effectively asserts.
Taranto’s bigotry toward women is many times worse, but his attitude toward men is also pretty damn offensive.
That Taranto is a misogynist is clear, but at the same time he has a far greater claim to being a misandrist than any straw feminist dredged up from the fevered imaginations of MRAs.
Darn, one of my captive asterisks seems to have escaped confinement by stowing away in my last post.
No, you’re not. You’re fond of fucking cis-vaginas, but I guess the fact those things are not the same has escaped you…
Gregory Greenwood
It’s the same as the “I’m not racist, I’m just discussing science” schtick.
Just seconding Louis @6 quick before I barf on my shoes.
@Gregory Greenwood, 8:
So the broader transaction was meant to… what? Prevent a war? Seal a business deal? Strengthen ties between two families? Yes, women are being used as currency, as objects in these transactions, but rather the point of the transactions is to constrain the future actions of the participants, is it not?
I’d be more inclined to agree with the sentiment that sex-only-within-monogamous-marriage is a social and specifically religious construct to control men. A futile one, obviously, but that’s very clearly what it’s aimed at doing.
I just now watched the clip…….. now I’m going to step out on my porch, look around my street to see if everything is familiar, the way it was when I looked earlier this morning.
The only reason that this idiot is being interveiwed is his Op-Ed column on February 10th in which he claimed that cases of sexual assault on campus that involve alcohol are really victimless crimes in which both parties are equally guilty. Then he went on to claim that the raped women are actually guilty of a crime against the menz!
Sadly it is not a new low in victim blaming to suggest that the victim should be charged with a crime for letting themselves be raped while drinking. I am fed up with living in a world where truly repugnant individuals like taurantosaurus are paid very well to publish straight up rape apologia in mainstream news.
I am happy he is not in a relationship. I suspect he gives off a supremely creepy vibe in person, judging from the oily smarminess that is apparent in this short clip.
Genuinely an awful person.
Can a Daily show interview be far behind. Samantha Bee, go get him.
We need to hear from more guys like Taranto because you just can’t make this stuff up. Taranto masks are gonna sell like hot cakes next halloween.
Ludicrous,
That would be amazing.
Repugnant! That’s the word that I was looking for (tip of the keyboard to Tethys). Yes, extremely distasteful…also, vile, odious, and smarmy. And is it his eye wear, which don’t fit, that make him look like a leering, beady-eyed mole…or is he just that way?
And what is with WSJ? Oh, yeah, it’s got Murdoch’s disease.
This video was posted on January 6th, so sadly he was likely being interviewed due to another odious column. He really makes me want to rip my hair out in frustration. The clueless statements are simply amazing, it is one of those videos where I do not even know where to begin.
Travis @#26 said This video was posted on January 6th…. Also, isn’t the video a collection of snippets from several interviews? His suit, tie, and shirt appear to change, and there are several different women, so I assume these cover some span of time.
Ohhhh, I did not notice that before. I just listened to it but did not watch the video itself.
moarscienceplz @9
No, no, I want to answer that question!
This is spooky… He basically has the exact same talking points I recently read from a (practicing!!) couple’s therapist here. Although he focussed on why women shouldn’t be in politics (don’t ask), his prime talking point was biology (women have PMS, therefore their decision-making prowess is unpredictable). Oh, and the real misogyny is preventing women from developing their feminininininity (that means children, you guessed it!).
These guys should get together and find themselves a deserted island with no communications and stay there. Let the Bold and the Brave follow.
Just awful.
sonofrojblake
Yes, women as things to be bought, sold and raped is all about the men.
Just when I thought you couldn’t get any worse…
Over at change.org there is a petition to fire this piece of shit. It is quite close to it’s goal, though a horde signal boost can’t hurt.
Wall Street Journal: Stop Promoting Rape Culture by Firing James Taranto
sonofrojblake @ 19;
That as the sort of thing, yes.
When the women play the role of consideration in a contract between men, even where that contract also constrains the actions of those men, it seems pretty clear to me who has the greater opportunity for self determination, unless you think that the notes and coins in your wallet/purse have a similar level of control over their existence to that which you possess.
Also, in such scenarios, a woman is being used as consideration in a contact between men where each male participant is contractually obligated to another male participant; the woman herself has no power and no agency, so it is hardly as though that type of marriage can be viewed as a means by which women controled men.
What makes you imagine that this construct was created to control specifically men, rather than primarily functioning to make it easier for a man to ensure that his wife only bears his children, so he doesn’t ‘waste’ his resources raising a child fathered by another man? It could also easily play into the various ways that sexual activity, or abstinence therefrom, has historically been viewed as connected to male honour, both with regard to a given woman’s father and male relatives as well as her husband – the toxic but still widespread idea that honour ultimately resides between a woman’s legs, if you will forgive the crudity and offensively objectifying nature of that formulation.
Given the oppressively misogynistic character of a culture that treated women as chattel rather than people, it seems quite parsimonious to read the privileging of monogomy in marriage as a means to ensure that the notional ‘honour’ of the woman’s family and spouse are upheld, and that the husband ‘get’s his money’s worth’.
(A minor note to PZ and robro)
All “the women doing the interviewing” and the “several different women” is the same woman (what I can see).
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- @ 17;
Not to mention “I’m not racist, I even let black people use my bathroom”, along with the classic “some of my best friends are gay”.
Perhaps the most nauseating variant of the misogynist version of this kind of thing I have heard came from a particularly slimy sexist I had the misfortune to encounter at university. He used to claim that it wasn’t that women were incapable of *insert traditionally male gender coded activity/employment*, but rather that they had more important stuff to do.
You see, for him it wasn’t a question of what women were incapable of, but rather what men were incapable of – men can’t bring forth the ‘miracle of new life’ by ‘nurturing it within bodies’, unlike the ‘miraculous physiology of women’. This repugnant twit used to claim that, far from being the smugly misogynist, sexist arsehat he evidently was, he simply respected the glory of women and of womanhood more than other people. He was quite convinced that he had a far greater regard for women than any mere feminist. Indeed, he saw himself as fighting against what he used to claim was the feminist crusade to ‘destroy womanhood’, which included his weird conspiracy theory that feminism was actually created by woman-hating men, and that the only women involved in the movement had been brainwashed of intimidated into it.
Of course, the really unpleasant stuff only started when he began to expound on his appreciation for the way in which women combined their mystical
broodmare‘earth mother’ powers with an ‘irresistable sexual allure’.He was pretty much the kind of person who left you feeling in dire need taking a shower and burning your clothes after being in the same room with him.
Truly a “you know I can hear you, right?” moment.
Jesus I feel dirty just having listened to that.
another case of a rose is a rose and stinks just the same, regardless of how hard you try to convince us of the otherwise
uncle frogy
To be fair, if most people poured out the uncensored undersides of their psyches to the world it would be just as strange and distasteful. But most of us have better sense and good taste than to do this.
…the uncensored underside of my psyche would reveal that I loathe thoughtless, slow-moving, unresponsive motorists with a *searing* passion, that I find random aspects of culture grating, that I resent feeling gaslighted and am a bit trigger-happy on perceiving it, that I’m often annoyed at feeling left out and shut out of Social Justice priorities, that I’m increasingly feeling like being scrupulously ethical is a lemon and I kind of want my money back, and that I occasionally think about things that I don’t, and no one should, ever want to actually happen, when I masturbate.
Generalized contempt for, and a predatory attitude toward real, live female humans…doesn’t really seem comparable.
Well, you know, women…they all look alike to me.
Speak for yourself.
You’ve got to be kidding. While you could argue that to some extent it controls both, the social expectations have always been much stricter for women, and the penalties for deviance much harsher. It’s generally been at least somewhat socially acceptable for men to have sex outside of marriage. Men availed themselves of mistresses and prostitutes and until fairly recently wives looked the other way (it’s not like they had a lot of choices. Women’s wages were low and women’s access to higher education was limited–they needed men to support them.)
Patriarchal marriage and the fetish for female virginity is and was intended mainly to control women. It’s a way for men to have exclusive access to one woman and be sure of paternity.
“The social purpose of marriage is to control men.” ??!!
How about: marriage serves men by divvying up the women so men are not in constant conflict with one another over women. Marriage allows men to live and work cooperatively in groups, rather than each man needing to run off all others, like gorillas or equine studs.
Somebody please explain his statement that women need their ovaries punctured this creep was taking about.
Terska @ 43;
I noticed that too, but I have no idea what it means. It could be some form of (almost certainly heinously misogynistic) slang I suppose.
@40 echidna
No, I’ll speak for you, too. Your deepest, darkest thoughts and fancies? The ones at 2:30 in the morning? The ones you have when your internal censor is turned off and it’s all unfiltered? The ones moving slowly and powerfully below the thin layers of reason and language unconstrained by convention? I’ll bet anything you care to name they’d be horrifying if they were dragged out into the light, just like everyone else’s.
Fortunately, as I tried however ineptly to express, most of us also have restraints and well-developed mechanisms for using them constructively, repressing them where necessary or at least behaving in a fashion which prevents us from making messes on the carpet and grabbing our neighbor’s sandwich at lunch time. Somehow “Tarantosaurus Sex” never had a proper upbringing or has decided that wealth and power allow him to act out.
I have no idea what tarantosaurus is communicating when he says things like “”Are you really equal when you have to have your ovaries punctured?”
I will assume his grasp of anatomy and human reproduction is as firm as his grasp of the concepts of equality and feminism.
Be careful what you project. My psyche is the most boring, placid, mellow island of equanimity ever.
I have been drunk exactly twice in my life, once to find out what it was like, and a second time by accident when I didn’t recognize my limits. Both times were over 30 years ago. I was totally, stumblingly, staggered, utterly disinhibited and letting it all hang out. And I discovered that I do not become the loudmouthed life of the party. I do not become the raging, abusive drunk.
I become the Buddha.
I become the calmest and most boring person at the party — quietly happy, content to talk slurringly with anyone who wants to have a conversation, but completely unperturbable.
It’s kind of disappointing, actually. I thought alcohol was supposed to be a social lubricant, but the only thing it does for me is make me one with the universe, in a rather negligent and unintellectual way.
anuran
You would lose that bet, and you really should shut-up now.
Just because your subconscious is full of things that you find objectionable, does not mean that everybody has that problem. We aren’t discussing what vile attitudes lurk below the surface dipshit, we are discusssing the vile opinions that are being published in mainstream media. Do try to keep up.
And we’re also not equivocating between private resentments and self-centeredness and taboo sexual fantasies, and privately viewing women as not human. The fact that anuran is comfortable glossing over the difference really disturbs me.
He was also using a tired old canard against equality.
The people in group A are not the exactly same as people in group B therefore equality is not possible.
Missing the whole point that equality is about treating people in a fair and equal way to mitigate the differences that may lead to one group disadvantaging another.
“The social purpose of marriage is to control men.”
That’s right! But… this strategy for control was not performed by women. We know that the behavior of a man trying to be the solely owner of a woman began at primitive tribes by men. This behavior was used and turned into the institution of marriage by predators wishing keeps poor men are slaves. Because if a poor born man is not linked to a nuclear family, he is a soldier fighting for his liberty, never will be a employe. So, it is an economic issue. And this strategy was quickly absorbed by the church, because poor married men pays to the church, free combatants does not.
re: punctured ovaries
Is he misunderstanding ovulation? I don’t really know what else that could apply to (thinking benignly here, which I probably shouldn’t be doing).
Yes.
anuran
And I’d bet anything you’d care to name that
are pretty individualized. And they are not fancies, they are terrors. And I really wish (thought I know it isn’t true) that others have similar terrors.
The video is completely and totally different. This is someone being actively and intentionally misogynistic, patriarchal, and dehumanizing.
See the difference?
to rwiess: You said:
“The social purpose of marriage is to control men.” ??!!
How about: marriage serves men by divvying up the women so men are not in constant conflict with one another over women. Marriage allows men to live and work cooperatively in groups, rather than each man needing to run off all others, like gorillas or equine studs. ”
My question: For how much time will you wishing that humans mimics animals? Look in this way: “If”… there were no marriages ( kids nurtured and living together), sexual intercourse should be uniquely moved by natural selection, first, women choosing the most attractive man, while the ugly men should be difficult to have sex. “If”, at such social system, men were still dominated by genetic inheritance from animals, should be what you said: ” each man needing to run off all others, like gorillas or equine studs”. But, if such social system, men already has developed consciousness and suppressed the animal inheritance, it would not happen, because ugly men should learning to live without sexual intercourse, very well.
You are supposing that all men still are dominated by genetic animal inheritance. It is not. I have seen lots of samples proving the opposite, included among more primitive people.
I pity any woman who would have anything interactions at all with this fucking jerk. I’m deeply embarrassed that men like this occupy the same space I do, even worse that they occupy positions of influence. Please go back to the stone age where you belong, dude.
Oh man, I totally would like to see this stupid dickhead being interviewed by a Dutch female interviewer. There are several who would totally have creamed him. You Americans are way, way too polite (well, not Samuel Jackson aka Laurence Fishburne).
@anuran #37
I have my share of dark thoughts and feelings on the “underside of my psyche,” but they’re just thoughts and feelings. I don’t cling to them, justify them, or make them part of my worldview.
He criticizes treatments to help an older women’s fertility, I wonder how he feels about viagra.
Stacy @58
Not only don’t I cling to my dark thoughts, I make a point of not putting them on public display.
My psyche underside is obsessive, self-absorbed and exceedingly whiny. But it isn’t sexist. With a sexist like Taranto I’d rather his sexism be expressed rather than being relegated and hidden to the censored underside of his psyche. I’d just rather I didn’t have to listen to him or have his thoughts aired on TV.
I *think*, as “punctuated ovaries” came in the same train of thought as the “women are having sex without consequences as an attempt to be equal” I think he means sterilization as a method of birth control (He apparently has never heard of the birth control pill). Or maybe he meant something else.
This was a collection of clips so I couldn’t follow his train of thought or argument and I found that a little annoying. For the most part it wasn’t too bad as I got that he was simply a backlash anti-feminist hater. But his argument about sex without fear of pregnancy and not really equality… I simply could not follow and I truly do not have any idea what what he was trying to say. Does any one know?
“The social purpose of marriage is to control men” only makes sense if you consider his apparent viewpoint that men are uncontrollable rape beasts. A rape-beast man in a marriage is forbidden from raping anyone other than his wife, and that’s how they’re kept under control.
And they say feminists hate men. Huh.
Ya know, not to blame the victim, but at some point the minority/majority that is women is gonna have to shut this whole thing down.
until then, this is gonna go on and on and on.
You know, for a while I had reoccurring fantasies of violently harming people. You know, throwing heavy things at people, kicking people as hard as I could with steel toed shoes, etc.
At no point did I go on television and try to pretend that A) such behaviour is acceptable, or B) such behaviour is superior to the equality and low levels of violence compared to decades past.
I think he may be referring to egg harvesting with the punctured ovaries thing. Goes with the references to older women having children. On looking up the process I find references to a needle “inserted through the wall of the vagina” (excuse me for a sec while I wince extravagantly) to extract the eggs before they’re released into the Fallopian tubes.
He’s not a misogynist–he is just a dickhead
It would be fun to watch a tag team match with him and Rachel Maddow
It’s kind of interesting that he assails fertility technologies that are simply tools that provide more liberty for women who choose to use them. One would think that someone from a free market/libertarian-oriented publication would be all for something that expands liberty and personal freedom.
It would be refreshing if these jerks just came out and admitted that their idealism only applies to people in their white male in-group.
louismorelli
Who are you counting as “primitive people”?
felidae
Yes, he is in fact a misogynist. Really, how much clearer does it have to be for you to accept that?
I finally managed to watch the OP video…
shitty work
.
what was their point?
Tethys @21
Oops… Sorry about the block quote fail.
Let me introduce the concept of morganatic marriage. Because it’s so unfair that noblemen should only get to publicly enjoy that one broodmare they bought. They wanted a hobbyhorse, too!
It’s also not as if prostitution was invented yesterday. Oh, and can somebody remind me again who’s traditionally the marginalized andsocially shunned party in (traditional) prostitution? The female prostitute or the male John?
The idea that marriage ever limited sex to monogamous marriage for men is bullshit. As for women, it traditionally didn’t even mention sex. Because having sex means that you have the ability to consent or to withdraw consent.
One of the things I am really growing tired of is this idea of competition as the big important motivator in human beings. As in we need marriage otherwise we would be like the gorilla or the horse and drive off all the other males so we could have all the females. That is clearly not what we do is it. there is another behavior that we excel at and that is cooperation In fact about the only other animals that come close are not mammals but insects.
cooperation permeates our whole lives, it is the root of our organization our cities, our tribes our clans our families. if modern hunter gatherers are any indication those early small bands were not characterized or dominated by a authority, aggression or competition.
uncle frogy
@Tethys #39
Signed! Thanks for posting the link.
Shit, *#31, not #39.
(echidna, anuran, I will post a comment to your ideas in the Lounge, since it is not directly relevant to this douchebag being interviewed. You made me recall a plot element in a novel.)
I have to run, more later, possibly in the [Lounge] or the [Thunderdome].
Signed, thanks!!!
Ah. One of those assholes who wants to put women on a pedestal and make very sure they stay there.
The other metaphor is the golden cage.
(The golden cage is intricately decorated with the four shades of pink Rowling recognizes: “shocky pink”, “violently pink”, “bubblegum pink” and “ugly pink”. Behold the patterns! They’re marvelous!!!)
Tethys @ 31;
Signed. Thanks for the link.
Tethys@31, signed, thanks for link. I think this man is a good argument for abortion, his mother should have had one He is a disgrace to the human species.
The editing made my brain hurt almost as much as the idiocy.
An off-topic thought inspired by the post title: How come the folks who are so vehemently opposed to sex without babies are pretty much equally opposed to babies without sex?
I don’t even understand what you mean.
Do you get some kind of violence fantasy when you’re very tired? Do you mean waking up at 2:30 or still not having gone to bed at 2:30?
I am genuinely curious.
Work on your knowledge of human biology, then. Men and women choose each other if society lets them; and “ugly”, or for that matter “stupid”, lies very much in the eye (or brain) of the beholder.
QFT.
…I think you’re confusing this with the official mistresses of the French kings or something. A morganatic marriage, as the article says, is a marriage between people of unequal rank, like when a crown prince marries *gasp* a mere countess and brings (in some traditions) untold shame to his dynasty.
Pun FTW.
red tide
I think you have fallen into exactly the pattern of rape apologia thought that the slimeball in question is trying to evoke.
He repeatedly conflates rape with sex. (reducing rape in the military is an attack on male sexuality) His hypothetical about what if they both were drinking is complete bullshit known as the grey area. Women getting men drunk and raping them is not a problem in our society, yet every time the subject of rape comes up some arsehole will bring up this non-existent issue as if it is relevant..
98% of all rapes are commited by men. 1 in 4 women and 1 in 10 men have been the victims of rape.
10% of the male population consists of rapists, who are also the same people who perpetrate a sizable proportion of all domestic violence, and sex crimes against children. source PDF
This is the very real and serious problem that needs to be addressed, and I am fed up with assholes like Taraunto being paid to spew rape apologia and attempt to cloud the issue.
Consent is easy if you treat others as equals. Rape is a crime. Alcohol is not a mitigating factor. Period.
@Ex Patriot #80:
I wouldn’t go anything like that far. He’s an object lesson, and it’s best to use him as such.
I think the punctured ovaries bit was about the Catholic church’s opposition to ‘artificial’ birth control, specifically IUDs.
The Catholic anti-birth-control contingent claims that birth control is actually oppressing women because, in order for the man to exploit her by having sex without the risk of pregnancy, she is forced/tricked-into bathing her body with ‘cancer-causing’ hormones or running the risk with an IUD of moving out of its intended location inside the uterus.
This is a rare but known possibility with IUDs. The most common (of this rare category) is the IUD getting embedded in the uterine wall. Another is getting expelled altogether. In the more rare of the rare malfunctions is to actually break through the uterine wall and move into the peritoneal cavity. Once it’s there, it’s theoretically possible for it to move about and so damage to other innards like an ovary. Thus, ‘punctured ovary’. But I haven’t found a report of that actually happening.
Adding to my comment 85, IIRC, the IUD risks were mainly with some early IUD versions/shapes, and the current designs are less problematic.
Red Tide @ 70, perhaps this will help you out a bit:
CCC (Crystal Clear Consent)
* First of all: Understand that if you go forward with initiating sexual activity not knowing if consent exists, you may or may not be raping someone, but you have proved beyond a shadow of doubt that you are willing to rape someone. Black areas make you a rapist, grey areas make you willing to rape.
* Making absolutely sure that consent is obtained and mutually agreed on. This does not include trying for consent when a person is not in condition to grant consent.
* No doubts as to whether consent was obtained.
* No guesses as to whether consent was obtained.
* No assumptions as to whether consent was obtained.
* No doubt as to whether any partner was capable of giving consent at the time.
Crystal Clear Consent includes Fully Informed Consent. Consent granted under deception is not CCC, it is manufactured consent.
* If you use deception to gain sex–impersonating another person, lying about contraceptive use, failing to disclose STDs–you are denying your partner the right to fully informed consent.
* If you are not sure whether or not you have an STD, disclose this uncertainty. If consent is granted, take responsibility and use protection. Just because you didn’t know for sure is not a defense.
* If you whine and wheedle about using protection a/o contraception, you are not in CCC territory. You are willing to rape.
* Lying about or withholding information that, if known, would’ve resulted in dissent is rape.
* If you consent to X activity under Y conditions and the other party changes those conditions to Z, then you have not consented to what is happening.
Crystal Clear Consent Practices:
* Understanding that consent may be withdrawn, by any involved party, at any time. Initial consent does not mean you get to carry on if consent has been withdrawn. In other words, people are allowed to change their mind at any point.
* If you have not had sex with a given person before, mutually understood language with confirmation is the best way to attain Crystal Clear Consent. Relying on body language or assuming consent without clarification is nearly always insufficient with a new partner. As you get to know your partner(s) better, you will get better at reading nonverbal / nonlingual cues, but clear communication is still absolutely necessary. It is important to remember that rape can still be committed within the confines of a relationship, at any stage. Consent that is not communicated is not CCC.
* If your partner is communicating something, do not assume that it has nothing to do with consent.
* If you initiate or offer and are declined in the context of a specifically romantic, sexual, or flirtations setting, do not initiate or offer again until one of the following four occur:
1. the other party has taken a turn initiating/offering and been declined by you.
2. the other party has taken a turn initiating/offering, was accepted by you, but after the activity lapsed you wish to restart.
3. it is an entirely new romantic, sexual, or flirtatious setting.
4. An amount of time has passed that is inverse to the number of times they have accepted your offer before. While it may be acceptable when dating to offer again in a week or in a closer relationship to initiate again after, say, one day [or whatever is the negotiated norm in said relationship] it’s not acceptable to ask someone again if you’ve just met them.
* If you initiate or offer and are declined in a context that is not specifically romantic, sexual, or flirtatious, do not initiate or offer again. Seriously.
* If you’re beginning a new relationship or going for a casual hookup, enthusiasm is key! Your new partner should be enthusiastically and happily involved with you. If no enthusiasm is present, it’s best to go for more communication and put off sex for a while.
* A person who wants consensual sex doesn’t want to commit or experience rape, and a person who rapes does. Whether a given rapist wants their victim(s) drugged, unconscious, frightened, intimidated, trapped, manipulated or tricked, or just pestered until they give in, the rapist wants the end result to be that a rape happens. That includes being forced to penetrate someone else.
* Contrary to what is often thought, consent is not difficult. If you still aren’t clear at this point, read this: http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2011/09/20/consent-is-hard/ and this: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/06/if-consent-was-really-that-hard-whiny-dudes-would-fail-at-every-aspect-of-life/
* Don’t want to listen to us? How about MIT:
Effective Consent is:
– informed;
– freely and actively given;
– mutually understandable words or actions;
– which indicate a willingness to participate in
– mutually agreed upon sexual activity.
David
This is interesting, because the article seems to gloss over the fact that those marriages were often second marriages of noblemen who were married “to the right hand”.
A regional example is Ludwig von Nassau Saarbrücken, who married Wilhelmine von Schwarzburg-Rudolphstadt in 1766 who died in 1780, but he also married Katharina Kest to the left hand in 1774 (!)
So he was legally and religiously married to two women at the same time.