Off-topic: why am I notified that I’m linked to this thread? I mean, now I’ll be linked to the thread, but why did I get the notification before I posted?
MrDibble and I were having a debate about whether aesthetic preferences were bigoted or not. A point came up in that debate: it is never wrong to decline sex. Not even solely because you don’t like the person’s skin color.
So, being ever skeptical, I asked myself, is it ever wrong to decline sex? That lead to the related question, is it ever right to rape someone? Of course not! My own mother told a younger me, in no certain terms, that rape is always wrong. Well, what if the fate of the human race depended on it?
I answered it, as you know, in the negative. But then I looked at the other side, if I was a woman faced with raping the last man. To be honest I’m not so sure if rape is justified/unjustified in that case. I’m just barely on the no, it’s not justified side. Obviously I am biased since I am male. So it was essential to the purpose of me making the topic that it was gender-neutral, the whole point (for me) is to see how other people approached the question. Pick their brains, see if it changes my mind. That’s what I wanted out of the discussion.
~Max
I agree with this, too. Much like rape, losing a child is deeply painful and will haunt you forever, especially if it was senseless. Rape, bad as it is, is no worse than that.
Why don’t you start a thread asking if the last couple on Earth has a moral obligation to repopulate it? (Hint, No they do not)
Max linked to your thread Abortion, Mandatory Vaccination, and Bodily Autonomy in his OP (under the “not misogynistic” expando block, with link text “debate on that topic”). You probably now have another link notification due to this post.
I do treat Great Debates as more of an academic, university-esque environment. I do not see it as casual conversation. Perhaps I am wrong to do so, but that is where I was coming from.
The reason I titled the topic that way was because I didn’t want any confusion as to what it would be about. With a sensitive subject like this I don’t want someone who may be a survivor to be intrigued by a vague title and be surprised/triggered that it’s a debate about the morality of rape. I was thinking, it’s possible they might open the topic just as the last post is someone arguing that the woman’s consent doesn’t matter because X, and then maybe the survivor gets that sick feeling that everything is wrong with the world.
I spent a good ten or fifteen minutes trying to find a concise title, to make sure anybody who sees the topic knows exactly what they are getting into when they open it. I was particularly surprised when codinghorror, who has in the past stressed how important it is to have a descriptive title, posted that he wished he could un-see my topic.
~Max
But, everyone is going to see it, and people don’t know what they are getting into when they simply hit “latest”, and get to see it.
Repopulating the Earth [CW: rape]
That’s just not true, both in that I’ll never have to experience rape and in that you imply I wanted to talk about rape being OK in any situation that may actually come to pass.
And although I do my best to distance myself from topics, it’s not always possible even for me and I never forget that.
~Max
It’s true that Great Debates is intended to be more rigorous and not a chatty, ‘safe’ forum. Your hypothetical didn’t bother me, but there was one a while ago that was so disturbing I had to mute the thread so I wouldn’t see it anymore. And AFAIK that one never attracted any warnings, or was even closed (though I can’t be sure, because of muting it) - so I don’t know why yours was treated so differently, or how you were supposed to know the subject was considered unacceptable.
I can try and elaborate more based on what I said in the Pit:
Your post was challenging a very strongly held moral precept, the one that rape is inherently wrong. If not handled carefully, this will come off as advocating that we no longer view it as such, and thus in some way defending this horrible thing.
You mention murder, but murder is not axiomatically thought to be wrong. It just means an unlawful killing. If you think the law is bad, then you might not think what occurred was actually murder, but some other more justified killing. There isn’t something like that with rape.
Now throw in that 1 in 5 women has been sexually assaulted. Many people on this board (women and men) have discussed their rape and the trauma it caused, and there are likely more who just can’t talk about it. So it’s already a touchy subject.
I can’t remember if I kept this in my pit post, so I’ll repeat it here: imagine if the subject was child molestation. If you asked if that was always wrong, and came up with a scenario where it might not be, how do you think people would react? I can tell you: some people would think you had pedophilic tendencies and were making excuses. Others would see you as a pedophile apologist.
It is a testament to how decent of a person you always come across as that people didn’t jump to similar conclusions on this rape thing. We know you just lack experience on these topics. And you’ve clearly learned a lot compared to some things you’d said in the past (also mentioned in the thread).
Now, I do think your post itself wasn’t as bad as people are reacting, so I suspect it was the title that took it so far. However, that is unfortunately something I cannot comment on, as it was already changed by the time I became aware of the thread.
But, if I had to propose a better title: “The morality of rape” seems like it would sufficiently describe the thread topic. I also would suggest a ton more disclaimers. For example: “Let me make it clear I do not support rape or sexual assault in any way… The point of this absurd hypothetical is to discover exactly why we regard rape as axiomatically wrong, not to in any way defend rape. I also am not at all trying to be insensitive or make anyone feel bad. That is why I titled the thread as I did [my proposed version, to give people a chance to opt out of this discussion for any reason.”
As an aside, that may have been me. In my earlier history on the 'dope, before the late Jonathan_Chance’s 2020 rule changes, these sort of debates would not have been given in their own dedicated topic but as tangents in the topic they arose in.
~Max
The problem is, intent doesn’t fix everything. We all pretty much assumed you didn’t have the intent of doing that. But anything you write has meaning on its own, due to its own context, divorced from the intent, just like any other action.
That’s the whole reason you have to be more careful on certain subjects. You can say something hurtful without ever meaning to be hurtful. I know from experience. People would say I unintentionally hurt them when I first got here. I still to this day don’t know what I did in one circumstance.
A lot of the advice I give on posting here is stuff I wish I’d known when I first started posting. I didn’t post the same sorts of things you did, but I could wind up offending when I didn’t mean to. And, of course, I still do it today.
I am reminded that you once told me “racism and other related issues” cannot be discussed academically, or as I remember the phrasing then, cannot be discussed dispassionately. So I think we just disagree about that.
I have myself noted that I cannot discuss many things I do here with people in casual conversation. Not just because of inappropriateness, but also because people in my life may not want to talk about uncomfortable or esoteric subjects. That’s part of the whole draw of this place, for me.
I don’t know how you dealt with these subjects during the formative years of your moral/political/adult life. Did you just not talk about race or rape with anyone and hope you would turn out okay? Let curiosity die with the cat and have none of it? Seek out an authority figure such as a pastor or parent? Work it out with close friends?
~Max
What kind of discussion about rape were you hoping for? What curiosity do you have about rape?
If you really are curious about rape, that’s the kind of conversation you have with a therapist.
I get where you are coming from and I think that basically no topic should be off limits for great debates. People have the agency to choose whether or not to participate. I don’t think it’s desirable to shield adults from hard topics.
That said… several topics such as age of consent, torture, genocide, genetic engineering, eugenics, nuclear or biological warfare, forced euthanasia etc. are going to be difficult to discuss on a message board that has evolved from a more inquisitive and open to tough debate environment into a social club.
Additionally, with the presence of a pit forum any argument made in one of those sort of debate threads will be twisted into personal attacks.
Do not take this as a chance to bash the Pit again.
I will not wait for an ATMB mod to stop such a derailment.
For me, the scenario challenges the assumption that rape is categorically the most wrong decision in every context. Before wrote up the topic for publication on the board, I had come to the conclusion - on my own - that rape is not categorically wrong as a matter of deontology (which I do not usually subscribe to anyways), that male-on-female rape is pragmatically wrong in this particular situation. Female-on-male rape I had real trouble explaining to myself why it’s wrong. I addressed this in #22, too.
Admittedly it’s selfish to ask potentially offensive questions when I don’t actually need to know the answer… I’m torn whether that is a good enough reason not to ask them. There’s no pressing need for me to post on this board at all for any reason whatsoever, it would seem to follow then that I should always avoid asking questions here that could reasonably offend people…
But if I apply this logic to other environments… the questions are never asked or answered. Satisfying my personal curiosity is never more important than potentially offending people. I guess that’s your point.
~Max