In New Orleans in the late 80’s it was his experience that a man catcalling a woman would get a beating.
In New Orleans.
Like for real?
I’m really actually pissed off by guys who define the experience of girls by their own interaction with those girls. You may be a decent guy, but guess what? There are a lot of not-decent guys out there. Instead of proposing idiotic experiments where you touch strangers, how about asking the women you know if they’ve ever experiencd catcalling, sexual assault or rape. Remember- these girls are the ones calling the shots! These men were always gentlemanly and no one ever did this stuff to girls! Andy actually can admit that he saw evidence of it and had consciously recognized. Good for him! The men who think it doesn’t- or didn’t- happen because girls were the ones in charge are making things worse. I hung out with mostly good male friends who would have defended my honor if they had known or seen some of the things that happened to me. But sometimes the good guys weren’t there, and the not so good guys were. At least Andy isn’t gaslighting my experience by pretending I was the one who was really in charge and all guys were paragons of respect.
They fucking weren’t. And by pretending that we didn’t and don’t experience that shit, you still aren’t showing a damn bit of respect to women.
Where in NOLAwould you go for a Debris sandwich?
There is one special specific circumstance in NOLA when it is appropriate and correct to catcall a girl who has specifically invited it. This occurs one time a year. What am I describing?
There was a local band that was big in NOLA during the late 80s. They were THE band to see. Everybody was sure that they were about to go Mainstream but they never did. Who were they?
Aaron ________.
Did you prefer the Audubon Zoo or the City Zoo?
And fuck a “unspoken covenant” to defend your date’s honor while you were out with her. Believe it or not, sometimes girls go out by ourselves! We shouldn’t need a guy at our side to protect us. That covenant just demonstrates that it’s needed, and a girl by herself is without protection.
We are discussing it this way because we are talking about the indoctrination of boys into “rape culture.’ Or, what were the cultural norms for boys in terms of how they were taught to treat, think about, and interact with girls.
So, it’s naturally from the guys’ perspective, which, as you have pointed out, was pretty fucking clueless as to what was actually going on with the women.
This sounds remarkably like something straight out of the mouth of Jordan Peterson. Just curious if that’s where you got this…
I admire Robert Sapolsky and I have this book. Have not started reading it yet. It’s moved all the way up in my ToReadNext list.
There’s that word again: ‘Marxist’. You quite like it, I assume. Is it meant as a scare word? Virtue signal/dog whistle to a similar minded group? Having actual first hand experience with the ideology (as close as any society has come, anyway), it doesn’t work as effectively as you seem to want to give it credit. For all its virtues and vices (mostly vices), its succeeded in achieving a revolution, but not an evolution. It didn’t change human nature one iota and very little chance it ever will. It doesn’t deserve the credit you wish to grant it.
That said, I believe what’s meant by “rape culture” isn’t that it causes rape. As you say, it largely prevents it from occurring more frequently than if there was no culture to speak of. What’s meant by the term, I believe, is a call out to a culture that has not done a better of job of preventing and punishing the rapes and assaults that continue to occur under its watch. This is what I was getting at earlier with my comment about how the left manages to step on its own dick (as it were) in messaging its values. Yeah, it’s unnecessarily nuanced. But you’re pretty smart, so I’m wondering if you are intentionally missing the nuance because you enjoy throwing “Marxist” bombs to tweak the knee jerk progressive scolds. (?)
If Marx couldn’t sell it with all the help he got, you think a bunch of ADHD Gen-whatevers are going to change human nature? We have more to worry from their addiction to smart phones and inability to communicate in real life than some meme that will last for another minute and and a half. I’ve got a couple of early 20’s kids and I see how dis-seriously they and their friends take this oppressor/oppressed dynamic you fear. Their generation is smarter than we give them credit for in this respect. If only they would put down their goddamn phones once in a while.
For the record, my experience is similar to yours. But as I got older I learned my experience wasn’t everyone else’s experience.
Except that you saw yourself as some sort of protector when you were on a date with a girl, so you KNEW that protection was necessary from other guys. Not completely clueless, or you wouldn’t have had that covenant to protect her because she wouldn’t need any protection.
I talked about the magic tricks to illustrate how juvenile and immature my sentiments were. Again. I am relating the thoughts of a 13-14-15 year old boy. That was the most sophisticated and intelligent understanding that I could muster in terms of my role in gender interactions at the time. The girls had a much more sophisticated understanding of underlying reality than I did, which was why they were in charge.
Is Virginia southern? Because I’ve met a god awful lot of boys (grown ass men, too!) who did think it was perfectly ok. Flattering, even.
Teenage girl in late 80s-early 90s.
But I guess all those guys came up with the asshole behavior independently, and none of them learned from other guys that it was ok.
This is complex. Yes. That is how I saw myself. It was a fantasy, but I also believed it and meant it. If something bad would have happened I am pretty sure I would have attempted to play out the role of knight in shining armor, pimples and little boy muscles all.
In terms of needing protection. Oh yes, she absolutely needed protection, for you know… bad guys… Ninjas… kidnappers… slavers…
… cut 15 year old Scylla some slack and stop breaking his balls.
Look, Scylla, just because you saw that girl as the one in charge, doesn’t mean that was even remotely her experience. Maybe it was. I don’t know the girls you’re talking about. But I had plenty of bad moments that had nothing to do with ninjas or slavers or kidnappers.
That’s a bingo.
I met him at a lecture I went where he spoke at my daughter’s school. That is to say he shook my hand and signed my copy of his book.
It’s very good. He makes a strong case for what I call the “meat puppet thesis.” Which is that we’re just a bundle of preprogrammed behaviors that thinks it is making choices.
It was responsible for over 100 million deaths in the 20th century. I would not say I am giving it credit. I honestly don’t understand how anybody can call themselves a socialist or Marxist. It’s worse than Nazi. So yes. It is a scare word.
Nope. I don’t think they are stepping on their own dick. I think “rape culture’ is deliberately chosen. It’s chosen to be divisive and as an attack against current culture as irredeemable. What? Are we goin to improve “rape culture,” and make it better? Fuck no. Throw that shit out and do something else. There are several other instances of leftist ideas and memes which could have been framed in a way that most reasonable people would find agreeable. Instead it seems like something is chosen which is intentionally divisive, and will exclude certain parties and turn them into enemies when they otherwise might have been friendly.
From this, I begin to think that solving the problems and improving things is not the actual goal.
Yeah, maybe. But these revolutions always take everybody by surprise when they occur. I’ve gone from pretty skeptical to pretty alarmed over the last two or three years as I see the rise of Socialism
Ok, I understand that, and I know it. That being the case I still don’t think that many kids are raised into ‘rape culture’ as described. By not many, I mean a number approaching 0
Please stop busting 15 year old Scylla’s balls. Cut 15 year old Scylla some slack, please.
52 year old Scylla understands and gets what you are saying. I understand that my worldview back then was rudimentary and immature as pertains to relations with women and gender roles.
Now that i am older and wiser and the father of two daughters I have graduated to just rudimentary.
I’m not busting 15yo Scylla’s balls. I’m trying to make sure that 52yo Scylla knows that just because he thinks girls call the shots, and he never learned catcalling or groping was highly complimentary, doesn’t make his experience the overriding one. Even southern young men develop or learn some truly awful ideas on how to interact with girls. And all the people who shrug and say “boys will be boys” or “he’s only acting that way because he likes you, dear” or “well, I never saw it happen so it must not happen!” Are making things worse.
All of which I’ve personally heard, on multiple occasions. I hope your daughters are always the ones calling the shots.
This. I’m not female but I’ve heard plenty form female friends and relatives.
Please ask some women from that era.
North Carolina, same era. I’m glad there are other women who grew up in that area and time to comment.
And so, about these good southern boys who come to the rescue… Exactly who do they come for, and when? Do they defend all women equally? Or do they defend their girlfriends or their would-be girlfriends to prove their manly chest-beating strength to prevent the EXTREMELY OBVIOUS danger to young women that even 15-y-o Scylla had a faint awareness of, but was so naive he misconstrued it as “ninjas” and “slavers” instead of “my friends and acquaintances?”
Did the unpopular girls have good southern boys rushing to their defense? Poor girls? Black girls? Ugly girls? (Please do not give me that tired “it doesn’t happen to ugly girls” garbage. Oh, it very much happens.) No vulgar jokes at their expense, no groping, no comments? No sexual humiliation that was clearly just a bid for social standing? Because I saw that, and experienced that. It happened to other women I knew. When I spent a semester in middle school having my breasts groped on the bus, and complained, I was told to make the boy stop. I spent the semester basically curled in a ball with my arms around my chest glaring at my assigned seatmate… who was not even reassigned after I started telling first the bus driver and then people at my school what was happening.
But I can’t remember once telling a boy in high school, even we dated, about it. It was a… dark secret women had, to the point that even asking for help with it created more an air of embarrassment that I was talking to them about this, and I was scolded for ‘letting’ it happen. And now women are talking about it, more and more. It’s not because we’re talking about something that doesn’t happen, it’s because we’re talking about what has happened, to a whole lot of us. Something that has so much stigma and so much “You should have been able to stop it” that many people can go their whole lives without talking about it, even to their own spouses. If you didn’t do that, great. It happened to women you knew in high school, probably even women you dated. Cope with that reality, because it is reality. No amount of “Oh women have magical powers they’re totally really the ones in control (hyuk, bless their pretty heads)” changes that fact.
I knew at least four friends in high school who had been raped and talked to me about it. All by family or acquaintances, good southern boys (or men) in a good, small town. This was not something boyfriends were told about. For one thing, as soon as it gets out, the counter-story of how the person was asking for it, or is lying to get back at an ex, or was trying to manipulate her boyfriend, starts to develop. It’s dangerous to come out as victim of sexual violence. ESPECIALLY in the south. Southern girls are taught to not talk about it, and that good girls don’t let that happen. A trial is a shame on your family. It simply didn’t seem worth it, to any of them, to go through having their lives completely overturned again when they didn’t feel anything would really happen to change. Years of experience, starting from pretty young, teach you that. It has taken years more for a lot of these women to be able to break out of that social and mental barrier and share their stories.
That’s the opinion of one woman who grew up in the south. You’re a man who grew up in the south, Scylla. You’re not 15 now. Are you going to listen to what people tell you is the reality they have faced, or continue to hyuk that good ole boys just don’t do these things, and good girls keep it from happening? With their magical control over men?
52 year old Scylla understands some that not only are their bad guys and good guys, he knows that some guys are both depending on what situation they Are in, who they are dealing with, that a man’s gallant protection can be a necessity, a nuisance, or danger in and of itself, since this moment’s gallant protector and nice, friendly good guy might reveal a different side.
When I say that “women are in charge”. I mean this in two ways. First, is that I have always had the suspicion that this was so in my relations with women, inclouding my daughter’s. Females just generally seem so much more socially adept, and sophisticated compared to my level of functioning.
Secondly, for myself. I present atypically appearance wise. If I was an actor I would be chosen for roles where I play the bad guy, or the dirty cop, or the guy that you thinks is the bad guy but proves himself to be the good guy by doing something great, but in the final twist you find out it was a ruse and he was the bad guy all along. Not even the cool big bad guy. Just the bad guy that gets his comeuppance fifteen minutes before the final confrontation with the real bad guy, so, you know, second tier bad guy. Picture him. That’s what you will think upon meeting me.
My mother would agree with this assessment as would my wife.
You would never let me walk you home if we met in a bar (except If you were playing the role of foolish girl.)
The reason I mention this, is that I cope with it by sending out harmless signals in the presence of women and children and what knot. By this, I mean the vibe that I try to convey is, “that you are in charge and you will show me how and if you wish to interact with me, and it will be done on your terms.” What I have found is that this is an excellent vibe and attitude for me to have with people who don’t know me. It allows them to be comfortable, and if they are not it gives them a graceful out.
Good post. I grew up in Ny, NJ. Just went to school in the South.
So, I want to be clear what I was talking about. I was talking about the culture and experience that I as a boy grew up in. It was not a culture that taught sexual abuse or rape, or to be demeaning to women. The exact opposite. It taught us how we were supposed to behave towards women, courteous, respectful, gallant defenders and protectors, and if we were lucky, objects of interest.
A lot of the reason why I think that culture was taught to us and emphasized is because that was not how boys are naturally without that culture. As animals we will seek to take what we want and as adolescents we are going to have poor judgement. The purpose of that culture was to civilize us, and make us acceptable parts of a reasonable society. Male or female this is what a raising a child is all about, and that’s what adolescents are. It becomes especially important when boys become physically formidable and sexually interested and aware.
The experiences you relate demonstrate the need for this type of civilizing and culture. It exists largely to discourage or mitigate such failures and incidents. In some it works well, in others it works imperfectly, in others not at all. A very small subset learn to take on the forms of that culture and use them to become “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” and indulge their predatory natures.
This portion of the debate started because Andy thinks rape culture is what cause these behaviors. I think biology and human nature is what causes them and then culture mitigates them. I based this on the way I was taught, and the fact that predatory behavior increases when societal and cultural controls lessen or fail.
None of this is to suggest that Boys are raised well and become good men and that bad things do not happen with depressing frequency and regularity. I am not a woman, and I can’t understand your experiences from your perspective. I apologize if anything I said could be interpreted as to suggest that rape and sexual assault and harassment are not frequent and common occurrences basically universal to women everywhere. That much I do know.
That’s what you learned from your youth, and great, good for you. The boy sitting next to you in homeroom learned that girls who went out dressed “like that” were asking for it. The boy on his other side? His friends taught him that it’s funny to grab a girl’s ass as he passes her in the hall. The girl two rows back? Her father told her that she better behave, or she might be assaulted some night if she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it’ll be her own damn fault.
More than half the room learned from constant societal cues that good girls stay out of trouble, and boys just can’t control themselves.