“Implicit consent”—women can be stripped if they’re dancing at a bar

This is an appalling story. Those “Girls Gone Wild” videos are already about the sleaziest things you’ll find advertised on mainstream TV: they are basically made by getting young women drunk to reduce their inhibitions and than urging them to expose themselves for ‘fame’ and titillation, and convincing them to do something stupid in front of a camera. Usually it’s a case of consensual stupidity (which should never be arousing, except for the fact that even sober guys can be awfully mindless about that sort of thing), but sometimes it crosses the line into assault.

STLToday reports that the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, was dancing in at the former Rum Jungle bar in 2004 when someone reached up and pulled her tank top down, exposing her breasts to the “Girls Gone Wild” camera. Jane Doe, who was 20 at the time the tape was made, is now living in Missouri with her husband and two children. She only found out about the video in 2008, when a friend of her husband’s saw the “Girls Gone Wild Sorority Orgy” video and recognized her face. He called up her husband, and in what has got to be the most awkward conversation ever, informed him that his wife’s breasts were kinda famous.

The woman sued Girls Gone Wild for $5 million in damages. After deliberating for just 90 minutes on Thursday, the St. Louis jury came back with a verdict in favor of the smut peddlers. Patrick O’Brien, the jury foreman, explained later to reporters that they figured if she was willing to dance in front of the photographer, she was probably cool with having her breasts on film. They said she gave implicit consent by being at the bar, and by participating in the filming – though she never signed a consent form, and she can be heard on camera saying “no, no” when asked to show her breasts.

Got that ladies? If you’re willing to dance, you’re willing to be stripped of your clothes. And presumably we can carry this a little further and reason that if you’re naked in a bar, you’ve consented to sex, although fortunately it did not go that far in this case. I can oppose this decision for the purely selfish reason that I don’t women to be discouraged from dancing happily in public, and for the reason that this is a gross injustice, that porn merchants’ bottom line has just been declared more important than a woman’s right to privacy.

How can you have implied consent when the woman is plainly saying “no”?

How can you have implied consent when the woman has her top forcibly pulled down, and she reacts by instantly pulling it back up?

Being at a party and dressing attractively in clothing that displays cleavage does not imply that you’ve abandoned all expectations of any modesty at all.

As you might guess, skeptical women are clear that this was a violation, and they can reasonably feel threatened by such a decision, but even worse — they can feel threatened by fellow skeptics and rationalists who react inappropriately to this case. I was left feeling rather queasy about the discussion on the JREF forums. A good number of people did respond appropriately, deploring the decision, but quite a few others react by either making jokes about breasts (way to make women welcome, guys), or by legalistic analyses that justify it in various ways, which all boil down to the “she was asking for it” defense, with a bit of the “she was too greedy to ask for so much compensation” argument.

Look. It’s simple. Violations of personal liberty are wrong. There is no reasonable excuse to justify pulling someone else’s clothing off in public, against their will. There is no reasonable excuse for profiting off such actions. Don’t even try to defend it, accept it and move on. Don’t make jokes about the inherent humor in assaulting women. Don’t make it easier for women to be made uncomfortable in the presence of men.

And most of all, do not ever purchase any of those execrable “Girls Gone Wild” videos. They are one of the clearest examples of violations of the dignity of women. I understand that as porn goes, they are fairly soft-core, but their main appeal seems to be that they celebrate the humiliation and manipulation of women under conditions of diminished capacity and judgment.

There has been a lot of discussion of “dicks” in the skeptical community lately, where “dicks” are people who are rude and brash. I think we’ve been using the wrong definition. If you’re someone who does any of the above, or who thinks with a pretense of calm rationality that we can justify what happened to that woman, then you are a DICK with capital D-I-C-K.

One of the things I love about having a comments section with a reputation as being a vicious piranha tank is that I can open up this subject and I know there will be a few True Dicks who will make an appearance, but I also know that the people here, the lower-case dicks who get accused of shrillness and discourtesty, will shred the flesh from their bones. And that makes me feel a little better.

The special case rule

This is true, but cruel:

i-18e4837c715dadf7531abafc00d70e2a-skeptic.jpeg

It made me think…there would be a lot more vegans in the world if they could each declare one special exemption. I think “I’m a vegan, except when it comes to bacon” would be a very common phrase, just like “I’m a skeptic, except when it comes to religion.”

Mmmm, bacon.

The Dick Delusion

I’ve been getting slapped upside the head with this “dick” meme that’s roaring through the skeptic community lately, largely because it seems that any time someone makes a generic criticism of rude, abrasive, confrontational critics of foolishness, the audience all thinks of the life-size poster of PZ Myers they’ve got hanging on their bedroom door back home. It’s a little annoying. Everybody seems to imagine that if Granny says “Bless you!” after I sneeze, I punch her in the nose, and they’re all busy dichotomizing the skeptical community into the nice, helpful, sweet people who don’t rock the boat and the awful, horrible, bastards in hobnailed boots who stomp on small children in Sunday school. It’s just not right.

Of course, there’s a range of criticism, too. I think Rebecca Watson is hitting the problem about right: it’s about picking your battles, and making a scene over trivial customs practiced with charitable intent is not a good idea. So, really, I don’t have to punch Granny in the nose—I can just say “thank you!”, and that’s fine. But when Granny tells you to get down on your knees and praise Jesus right now or you’re going to burn for eternity in a lake of hellfire, then some dickishness is not only justified, it’s necessary.

The thing is, the dickishness practiced is not nose-punching, it’s not even howling four-letter words at Granny…it’s a flat statement of “That’s crazy, I’m not going to do that, and here’s why.” That, apparently, is the New Dickishness.

One recent flashpoint in this argument was Phil Plait’s talk at TAM 8, in which he asked a rhetorical question, “How many of you … became a skeptic, because somebody got in your face, screaming, and called you an idiot, brain-damaged, and a retard?” And the Pharyngula switchboard lit up. Lots of people wrote to me via email or twitter, some gloating, some just unhappy, stating that Phil had just called me out.

No, he didn’t. He didn’t mention me at all. He opened up against a strawman New Dick, which is unfortunate, because there isn’t anyone who fits that description in the skeptical movement. There are people like that elsewhere: drill sergeants and televangelists come to mind.

A few people are speaking out against the talk. Stephanie Zvan points out that Randi is one of these ‘dicks’, that his willingness to sneer at charlatans was an important factor in her own acceptance of skepticism. Matt Dillahunty thinks Phil was making a bit of a dick move himself, which actually demonstrates the utility of the making people think with a little harshness. I also fear that one of the reasons for the popularity of Phil’s talk (it did strike a chord with many) is that it reassured many that certain aspects of belief were going to be walled off from skeptical criticism in the name of politeness and tone and courtesy.

There is a fair point being made, that there are multiple strategies that work to convince people to rethink bad ideas, and they don’t all involve punching people in the face…and many of the best strategies do involve politely listening and criticizing. But I think the best ideas involve a combination of willingness to listen and politely engage, and a forthright core of assertiveness and confrontation — tactical dickishness, if you want to call it that.

I don’t, actually — it also seems like a dick move to try and associate a strategy with gender, since some of the most wonderfully dickish skeptics I know are female. But that’s a separate issue.

Of course! It’s HuffPo!

Once again, the Huffington Post features front page quackery. In this case, it’s a ridiculous article that accuses dermatology of being a conspiracy to make doctors rich; you know that stuff about UV damage to the skin inducing melanoma? It’s all made up by doctors who are in the pocket of the vast sunscreen industry.

I don’t link to Huffington Post anymore, so you’ll have to settle for Peter Lipson’s deconstruction.

124 days to Skepticon 3

The lineup for SkeptiCon 3 just keeps getting better and better — James Randi and Sam Singleton are going to be there now, too. One other important feature of this meeting: every time I mention one of these posh meetings with the fancy-pants speakers, someone looks at the registration fees and swoons theatrically at the cost. That won’t happen here.

It’s free.

You’ll have to get there somehow, but that shouldn’t be a problem. There are lots of flights into Springfield, Missouri because it’s the gateway to Branson, the old-timey c’ntry western entertainment capitol. Just think, you’ll get to rub shoulders with happy families on their way to watch wholesome entertainment like Debby Boone and the Gatlin Brothers and Michael Bolton, and when they chirpily ask watchoo doin’ this weekend, you can glower under your sinister cloud of doom and intone, “I’m going to curse God and Jesus in the heart of the Assemblies of God church, while destroying the blithe delusions of quacks and frauds.” Fun!

You’ll also have to pay for a room, and here’s the deal: if you book your room at the University Plaza Hotel, not only will you get a good room rate, but every 50 rooms booked means they’ll comp a room for a speaker, which is one of the tricksy things they’re doing to get the costs down. Do it now. You’ll want to stay there. One of the features of this con is the all-night conversation and partying with the speakers. You are expected to keep DJ Grothe and Richard Carrier and Dan Barker and Rebecca Watson and Debbie Goddard and Amanda Marcotte up all night. James Randi might vanish in a puff of smoke whenever he feels like it, but the rest of us…fair game.

So no excuses. Mark 19-21 November on your calendars now. Make plans.

It’s the Happy Hunting Grounds!

Feeling bored? Not enough creationists turning up on Pharyngula? Do you need some fresh meat? There’s a whole field of sheep on the Natural Therapy Pages on Facebook who are unaccustomed to skeptical wolves! A few sample messages there:

Tony Gyenis Susanne and I are bringing tuning forks and channeling to a whole new level. I am presently the only Tuning Fork practitioner in Canada that I know of working in the 6th dimension. We love the fact that we are working with group healing to empower large numbers of people. We will start in Ottawa, Canada and move this across the country and then internationally. We love the interaction with the Elders and the higher realms.

Olya Szewczuk
Some people seem to “sense” the energy of different foods, medicines, supplements, and even technology and other things that surround us in our daily lives.
These frequencies can affect our bodies, our minds, and our state of well-being by bringing our own body frequency up or down, in tandem with their energy.
When we ingest a food or supplement, its frequency, as well as its chemistry, affects us.
These are the principles upon which homeopathy is based.

Romp through the place while you can — I predict it will become an invitation-only group in a few days. Bring back souvenirs! I’d really like to have a 6-dimensional tuning fork, myself.

No, it doesn’t

Rachel Roberts says, “I don’t know how, but homeopathy really does work“. Oh, I thought, let’s give it a try and hear why. But then I was five paragraphs in and getting nothing but this inane anecdote about how when she was 21, and she was at this party, see, and this lady said she used to have some ailment of an unspecified nature and then she took two sugar pills and zip-zap-alakazam, a couple of days later, she was cured!!! Of what, I don’t know. Could have been a cold. Coulda been terminal pancreatic cancer. Coulda been the Zombie Plague, and the lady could have been green and dead with her left arm gnawed off and moaning for “braaaains”, and now she’s serving tea at the Ladies Club and singing every Sunday in the church choir. We don’t know. But whatever it was, it convinced Rachel Roberts to throw away her scholarship to a graduate program in neuroscience and go to homeopathy school.

The Zombie Plague theory acquires a little more credibility. That dinner party encounter seems to have sucked her brains out.

She does throw out a little flurry of studies that have shown the efficacy of homeopathy, but I’m unconvinced. I’ve looked into a few of those papers in the past — the homeopathic dilutions of thyroxine inhibiting metamorphosis sounded interesting — and found nothing but confusing protocols, extremely weak effects, and poor experimental design, not to mention the complete absence of a mechanism and that their results contradict good studies on the effects of concentration of thyroxine on frog metamorphosis (we have very good data on how increasing the concentration of thyroxine speeds up metamorphosis, with charts and tables and everything.) It’s funny how when advocates do some sloppy research, they get an effect…and when critics start controlling for bias and errors, the effects disappear. Almost as if they weren’t really there.

Skip Rachel Roberts. Read Ben Goldacre instead.

The Vatican has been beaming cancer rays into children!

That’s the latest news, anyway: radio masts operated by the Vatican have been implicated in an increased incidence of cancers nearby.

It is such a juicily evil story — it would just fit the Pope’s Bond villain image so well — but, and I really, really hate to defend the Vatican, I don’t buy it. Sorry. I know it’s my mission to smack the Catholic church around, but this is a case where I just find it highly unlikely.

I have not read the report; all I’ve seen so far is the accusation, the small numbers (19 deaths in 23 years) and the excessive charges — 6 people are being investigated on criminal charges of manslaughter. Something’s just not right here.

These stories crop up regularly. People claim power lines or cell phones cause cancer, but none of the data really support it — there is no plausible mechanism where these very weak fields could be causing cancer, and at best the epidemiological studies show there can be only a very small effect…or more likely, no effect at all.

Maybe there are some new and persuasive data and statistics in this new Italian study, but even if they actually have a believable measure of an effect, it’s not going to justify criminal charges. It’s also peculiar to focus on just the Catholic church; are there no other shortwave radio antennas in Italy?

Apparently there are: the Italian navy has radio masts in the same area, but to make the report even weirder, only Catholic antennas and not naval antennas cause cancer. I’d like to know how they determined that, and what makes Catholicism carcinogenic.