Comments

  1. microraptor says

    Side tip: don’t print fiction depicting a character being raped as being “sweet” or “romantic.”

    This happened yesterday at a site I follow. A short comic was published depicting the male character forcing himself on the female character over her protestations, only it was “okay” because she started to enjoy it. Multiple people raised a complaint about this, and the site promptly disappeared the comic and pretended that it had never been posted.

    Second side tip: When you screw up, admit it and don’t try gaslighting your way out of things.

  3. chris61 says

    Side tip: don’t print fiction depicting a character being raped as being “sweet” or “romantic.”

    You’ve just advocated the erasure of an entire genre of fiction.

  5. What a Maroon, living up to the 'nym says

    Jim Phynn,

    I’d put 10 first. Really, that’s the only one you need.

  6. What a Maroon, living up to the 'nym says

    Although I might add: if you’re with someone who’s not an adult, don’t have sex with them, even if they say they want it.

  8. Saad says

    Leave it to chris61 to bring their misogyny to a completely uncontroversial thing having to do with feminism.

  14. Holms says

    Misandryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…!

    #10, 12
    Are you Kirbmarc from the ‘pit? Whoever you are, you are definitely slyme.

  16. rietpluim says

    krsone

    Does it matter?

    Yes it does, because if you did…

    What’s the difference between this story and the “forced sex, but then “she enjoys it” ” story in the comic described by microraptor?

    …you may have found an answer to this question.

  19. Gregory Greenwood says

    Clear, straightforward advice, and all you really need to worry about is point ten – perhaps we should just tattoo that across the foreheads of every man who abuses women in any fashion – maybe then they would remember?

    And yet despite this our society at large still insists on issuing largely useless advice to women on how to avoid being targeted by sexual predators, rather than simply telling men and boys that you must never assault anyone, and that turning a blind eye to assault or its precursor behaviours is to be complicit in the outcome.

  20. Holms says

    #15
    I doubt it, though he might easily be a fan of same. However, whoever he is he is assuredly a slymer, and probably Kirbmarc.

    #17
    Hah! Identifying someone’s preferred forum and psuedonym is now ‘name calling’? You guys are so precious.

  22. The Mellow Monkey says

    This again? There’s plenty to be discussed when it comes to social conditioning informing what turns us on, deconstructions of the way power is paired with eroticism, and the ethics of reinforcing that pairing, but “Greta Christina wrote a dirty book, GOTCHA!” isn’t much of a discussion.

    From the introduction to Bending:

    Since most of these stories are kinky, and since some people reading this may not be super-familiar with kink, I want to take a moment to talk about kinky porn.

    Some of these stories are about consensual sadomasochism. They’re about negotiated SM scenes between consenting adults, with safewords and limits and attention to safety. There’s conflict in the stories, and mis-steps, and bad decisions… but fundamentally what happens within these stories is consenting. They are attempts to express, in fiction, some of the things consensual sadomasochists do.

    And some of these stories aren’t. Some of these stories are about force, and violation, and abuse of power. They are attempts to describe, not what consensual sadomasochists do, but some of the things we think about. They are attempts to describe some of the images that come into our minds when we masturbate, or have sex, or engage in consensual SM. They are attempts to describe some of the activities that some of us consensually act out with each other. They are fantasies.
    …
    I’ve divided the other stories into five sections. There are stories about bad, bad ideas, people acting on impulse and letting the little head do the thinking. There are stories about force and power and the borderlands of consent, where the victims are technically free to leave but feel like they can’t. There are stories about religion, where power and shame and violated consent get tangled up with an all-powerful Judge, obsessed with our sex lives, who watches everything we do and will smack us down for it on a whim. And there are sweet stories about love and trust, intimacy and connection, people having sex that makes them entirely happy.

    If someone was really, truly concerned, the entire introduction and the first three stories are in the free preview on Kindle and you can go and read them without spending a cent.

    Yes, there’s some dark stuff in the book. She is not glorifying assault, nor painting it as something aspirational, nor normalizing it, nor romantizing it, nor pretending that consent isn’t the most important part of sex. The power of consent is being explored in virtually every sentence.

    Everything in the book is very well contextualized and, considering the great pains Greta Christina took to provide that context, trying to paint the book as nothing more than “rape erotica” is extremely disingenuous.

  24. The Mellow Monkey says

    It’d be interesting to know what exactly makes Christina’s stories about force, violation and abuse of power any different from other erotic fantasies about force, violation and abuse of power, like the ones which microraptor and Giliell see as part of what is needed to prevent sexual assault.

    Though she has many admirable qualities, Giliell is not my pope. I disagree with some things she says sometimes. I imagine she disagrees with stuff I say too. And we both disagree with things PZ says. Your blathering here is pointless shit-stirring, krsone, without an ounce of interest in actually discussing the harm or lack thereof in kink literature.

  25. chris61 says

    @ saad

    Leave it to chris61 to bring their misogyny to a completely uncontroversial thing having to do with feminism.

    That would be HER misogyny. My personal pronouns are she and her and I’ll thank you to remember that.

  26. chris61 says

    @ 7 Giliell

    If you can’t write a story without supporting and reinforcing myths that are demonstrably harmful to living, breathing human beings you should stop writing.

    Maybe that’s true but you’re talking about a genre written primarily by women and for women.

  27. Holms says

    #21
    Calling someone “slyme” counts as name-calling.

    I just have to shake my head and laugh at how sad you guys are. You’re absolutely fine with abusing people one moment, but then simply identifying your home forum is name-calling.

    Anyway, your trolling is not finding much of a mark, so I’m sure you’ll run out of steam soonish. Don’t forget to gloat over how you totally zinged us or whatever. Kirbmarc. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  29. says

    @chris61
    Are you suggesting that we shouldn’t care about harm as long as it’s perpetrated by women? Because that’s what #26 sounds like.

  30. blf says

    Men, you want to treat women better? Here’s a list to start with:

    Over the last week, there’s been a lot of talk about how women are treated in the workplace — and elsewhere. TV writer Nicole Silverberg argues that if men want to step up, they can

    Hey men, what are you planning to do better? Because you need to do better. Here are ideas on how you should treat women better.

    ● Talk to your friend who is “kind of a creep” at work.
    ● Don’t talk over women.
    ● If you are asked to be on a panel/team and see that it’s all men, say something. Maybe even refuse the spot!
    ● When you see another guy talk over a woman, say: “Hey, she was saying something.”
    ● Learn to read a fucking room.
    ● Don’t call women “crazy” in a professional setting.
    ● Don’t use your “feminism” as a way to get women to trust you. Show us in your day-to-day life, not in your self-congratulatory social media.
    ● Don’t touch women you don’t know, and honestly, ask yourself why you feel the need to touch women in general.
    ● Do you feel that any woman on earth owes you something? She doesn’t. Even if you’re like, “Hm, but what about basic respect?” ask yourself if you’ve shown her the same.
    ● Don’t send pictures of your penis unless she just asked for them.
    ● If a woman says no to a date, don’t ask her again.
    ● If a woman has not given an enthusiastic “yes” to sex, back the hell off.
    ● If a woman is really drunk, she cannot consent to you and she also cannot consent to your buddy who seems to be trying something. Your buddy is your responsibility, so say something and intervene.
    ● If you do the right thing, don’t expect praise or payment or a pat on the back or even a “thank you from that woman”. Congratulations, you were baseline decent.
    ● Involve women in your creative projects, then let them have equal part in them.
    ● Don’t make misogynistic jokes.
    ● Don’t expect women to be “nice” or “cute” and don’t get upset when they aren’t those things.
    ● Don’t make assumptions about a woman’s intelligence, capabilities or desires based on how she dresses.
    ● Pay women as much as you pay men.
    ● If a woman tells you that you fucked up, and you feel like shit, don’t put it on that woman to make you feel better. Apologize without qualification and then go away.
    ● Don’t punish women for witnessing your vulnerability.
    ● Don’t get defensive when you get called out.
    ● Don’t need to literally witness a man being horrible in order to believe that he’s horrible. Trust and believe women.
    ● Don’t use your power to get women’s attention/company/sex/etc.
    ● Be aware of your inherent power in situations and use it to protect women, especially via talking to other men.
    ● Stop thinking that because you’re also marginalized or a survivor that you cannot inflict pain or oppress women.
    ● If women’s pain makes you feel pain, don’t prize your pain above hers, or make that pain her problem.
    ● Don’t read a list like this and think that most of these don’t apply to you.

    (These also apply to how to better treat transgender and non-binary people, who are in more danger than cis women).

    Quoted in full.

    A fair number of the readers’s comments seem to be taking issue with the tone (e.g., “too confrontational”), so I’d suggest another rule, something like:

    ● If you think a woman’s complaints about rape, about unequal pay adding up to hundreds of thousands over a lifetime, about not being listened to in a myriad of stations, and and and, should shut up or write a nice polite list, then you are part of the problem. This list isn’t angry, it’s stating fucking fact and poiinting out what should be goddamn obvious.

    The above additional rule is adapted from one of the best readers’s comments. (as picked by the Grauniad and numerous other readers).

  31. birgerjohansson says

    I agree wholeheartedly with the list.
    In regard to “slime” -you should not slander a perfectly useful substance by associating it with assholes:
    “Stiff fibres spun from slime” https://phys.org/news/2017-10-stiff-fibres-spun-slime.html
    Also, hagfish are not associated with rape or sexual assault despite being extremely slimy. So we may need to find something *worse* than slime to characterize the Weinstein/Trump/creepoids. Does the black stuff between dead people’s toes have a name?

  32. Saad says

    chris61, #25

    That would be HER misogyny. My personal pronouns are she and her and I’ll thank you to remember that.

    Are you seriously taking that tone with me for using them/their since I did not know what your pronouns are? Stop trying to desperately score a point here since your rape apologia got called out.

    Oh, and it follows directly from your post in #3 that if there was an established genre of blackface movies today, your response to someone advocating against it would be the same. Think before you post next time. You don’t want to be supporting rape and racism now, do you?

  33. Saad says

    chris61, @26

    Maybe that’s true but you’re talking about a genre written primarily by women and for women.

    Presenting violation of consent as something fun and harmless is wrong regardless of the gender identity of the presenter.

  36. Holms says

    #31
    ‘Slyme’ (note the spelling) is a specific reference to a forum full of FTB obsessed trolls.

  37. blf says

    I’m not keen on the title — it’s too close to victim-blaming — but look past that editorial stupidity (although it is one example of the problems), as this is an interesting read, I’ve learned the hard way to dress modestly in New York:

    Men like Harvey Weinstein are everywhere. But women across the globe are finding their voice
    […]
    Life as a woman in New York is an assault course. Take a simple example, like walking down the street to get a cup of coffee. First, you evaluate the situation. Do I walk past that building site and have sexual comments shouted at me, or do I cross the street and be leered at on the footpath by some random dude? Do I stop when a man says something menacing, or do I raise my middle finger and keep walking?

    Sexual harassment is a daily occurrence here. Sometimes it’s a catcall, or a seedy comment; those are the good days. Then there’re days when a man will try something at an ATM, or corner you on the street. It’s like a scale of harassment, going up or down depending on the severity of the incident, a seismic monitoring of bodily violation.

    […]

    Sexual harassment is particularly prevalent on the subway. There are public notices with drawings of stick people rubbing against other stick people and a big red line through it. It says a lot about a place if you have to explicitly tell people not to grope someone on their way to work.

    […]

    Men like Harvey Weinstein are everywhere. As women across the globe are finding their voices, every basic misogynist clutching to the last gasps of patriarchal power is kicking and screaming, throwing a collective tantrum.

    As an emigrant, I often feel lonely, far from home, away from my tribe.[†] If I can glean anything from these awful truths finally coming out, it’s that I feel as sense of solidarity across oceans and continents. When I walk down the street tomorrow, I’ll know that the secret whispers women have shared with each other to keep ourselves safe are out. There is still darkness, but maybe now we can step out of the shadows.

      † The authour, Lisa Tierney-Keogh, “is an Irish playwright who has been living in New York City since 2010.”

  38. chris61 says

    @32 Saad

    Oh, and it follows directly from your post in #3 that if there was an established genre of blackface movies today, your response to someone advocating against it would be the same. Think before you post next time. You don’t want to be supporting rape and racism now, do you?

    If it was a genre of movies written and directed primarily by POC and whose audiences were primarily POC then yes my response would be the same because what we’re talking about is a genre of fiction written primarily by women and read primarily by women.

  39. chris61 says

    @29 LykeX

    Are you suggesting that we shouldn’t care about harm as long as it’s perpetrated by women? Because that’s what #26 sounds like.

    No I’m suggesting that it’s patronizing to tell women that they can’t write something that many other women (based on the sales figures for such books) want to read.

  40. microraptor says

    chris61 @39:

    Nobody’s telling anyone not to write something.

    What we’re saying is that regardless of sales figures, don’t write a story about someone being raped and claim that it’s romantic. “But she enjoyed it” is the sort of argument that rapists use to get themselves out of trouble. It’s what convinces teenage girls in destructive relationships to stay with their abusive partner because it depicts forcing yourself on your partner over their protestations as normal and acceptable.

  41. The Mellow Monkey says

    chris61

    No I’m suggesting that it’s patronizing to tell women that they can’t write something that many other women (based on the sales figures for such books) want to read.

    What fucking books are you talking about? Rape isn’t an acceptable inclusion in most modern romance and erotic romance. When I wrote one particular book for a major publisher, my editor worried at one point because the hero and heroine kiss after they’ve each had a glass of champagne and she wanted me to make it clear that no one was intoxicated or in any way coerced.

    Books like 50 Shades and others that have copied it are not indicative of the genre as a whole. They’re indicative of stereotypes about the genre that people from outside it have. That series brought in a bunch of readers who don’t normally read romance, a few other authors exploited their interest in abusive trash, and now–looking at sales figures–we can see those readers are leaving the genre. Because they were never regular readers to start with,

    I’m telling you as a fucking romance novelist and a fucking reader of romance: I don’t want rapes in these books and you’re goddamn right I will tell people rape shouldn’t be in them. It’s not patronizing. This is my genre. I am one of the people writing them. If I put something harmful in there, I want people to tell me about it so I can fix it. Advocating to keep harmful trash in there is not a defense of the genre. We’re trying to police our own community here and don’t need people like you who clearly know nothing suggesting we’re writing nothing but rape and shouldn’t change a damn thing.

    Every time you hear about some big brouhaha in romanceland because a bunch of people are protesting a Nazi/Jewish romance, or a Confederate slave owner/slave romance, or some other rape-tastic pukefest, the protest is led by romance authors and readers.

    We. Do. Not. Want. It.

  42. chris61 says

    @41 Mellow Monkey
    I’ve never written a romance novel and haven’t read one since before 50 Shades came out so if you’re saying that tastes in romance novels have changed over the past decade or so, I’ll take your word for it.