Enough from the defenders of rapists already

The BBQ Pit
441

What you were responding to was:

You replied by saying “that’s not logical.” I believed you to be saying it wasn’t logical to think the insult implies the value of a woman is tied to her sexual attractiveness. That may or may not have been a correct reading of what you said–but what I did say when I popped into the conversation was very clearly and explicitly arguing that it is logical to think the insult implies the value of a woman is tied to her sexual attractiveness. And you certainly seemed to think that a discussion of that question (i.e. the question of whether the insult presumes the value of a woman is tied to her sexual attractiveness) was worth discussing with me. Certainly you also thought that the answer to that question had implications for whether the insult is misogynistic or not, but in the conversation between you and me, that implication was never under discussion, but instead, only the question of whether the insult presumes that the value of a woman is tied to her sexual attractiveness.

This is exactly where we disagree. I have argued that the insult, in order to work as an insult, must make presumptions about women in general. You haven’t really answered that argument, only counter-asserted. So there may not be anything more to say.

442

Perhaps I might have been able to better express my point, because you not only missed it, you missed the point of the point. Again, Insulter did not (IIRC) say Insultee was ‘too ugly’ to be raped. He (I assume it’s a he) said nobody would want to rape Insultee. It may or may not have been Insultee who then leaped to the presumption that the judgement of unrapeability (a word I have never before typed) was based on looks. As I said, since I don’t know what Insultee looks like, I had assumed it was a judgement based on character or personality. “You’re horrid” as opposed to “You’re ugly”.

Well I suppose it’s up there with “You’re horrid”, but while “you’re ugly” may or may not be true, I don’t believe it was said by the rape apologist. It was, rather, assumed by someone and picked up other posters.

I really must now plough back through some ugly posts and check my recollection…

Making it unlikely that a reasonable poster would have intended that implication. I chose my qualifier carefully…

Whatever the true implication, the remark was neither to your taste nor to mine. But since you raise the question, what has taste got to do with it? I don’t seek to suppress or vilify Barry Manilow or brie.

443

No, it was, because I assumed you meant the “entire” value of a woman was her sexual attractiveness (which is how it would fit in with the misogynistic theme that I had been discussing and which you were responding to). So when you asked where I got the notion that we were discussing whether its the “entire” value of a woman, that’s your answer. I wasn’t making it up, it’s how I intepreted your remark as fitting into the dicsussion you were commenting on.

WADR I don’t think your assertion needs anything more than a counter-assertion, if that. It’s not a general rule of insults directed at a specific person that they contain presumptions of this sort about the entire class. If you say a man is stupid it does not amount to a presumption that “the value of a man is his brains”. And so on for any other insult. If you want to say this is some unique exception to insults in general, then you need to provide some sort of rationale for it rather than just asserting it.

444

Wish I hadn’t checked now, because I know which side I’m on in this one, but let’s at least base any condemnation of SA on what he actually said rather than what you supposed it meant.

445

What would you take that remark to mean, on your planet?

446

This doesn’t conflict with what I said – rapists can still be more likely to choose to rape certain types of women while still being after “rape-sex” as opposed to just sex.

447

In the interests of fighting ignorance and because accuracy is key as you noted. But also because I know I’ve seen it a lot and can validate his experience, I did a quick search on your username and your use of the word “ignore”. I did a quick scan and saw a couple of the posts using the traditional use of the word, but the bulk of the uses were in the same vein as the post he’s talking about. There were 106 hits. $106* is some decent money.

This was a global search. Perhaps the $10 reference was just for this thread.

*give or take since not all suggestions don’t use the actual word ignore and some uses of the word ignore aren’t used in that context.

448

I’ve never had my looks discussed so much. It’s cracking me up. And for the record, I’ve had a fellow or four that “couldn’t control themselves” around me, but as stated, but as was my larger point regardless of my beauty or not, none have ever been rapists. Or rapists apologists.

449

I have no idea why you think that “entire” has anything to do with it. Anyone who wants to call the insult misogynistic is clearly going to think you don’t have to think a woman’s “entire” value is in her sexual attractiveness in order to be a misogynist.

I offer argument, you call my argument “assertion” and double down on mere counterassertion. Not good signs. But then it gets both better and worse:

Now you’re offering counterargument, even though you just intimated you intend only to offer counterassertions.

So anyway, I’ll repeat something I said before, and to which you agreed: Every time someone utters an insult, by that act they intend to imply that the target of the insult has failed to meet some standard or other.

The standard at issue here is some sufficient degree of sexual attractiveness on the part of the target of the insult.

If it is to work as an insult then it must presume almost exactly that! (With no implication of “entirety,” though, so not “the” but “part of the” or “one dimension of.”) Here is the argument for what I’ve just said: If it’s not presuming that, then it’s not insulting, because it’s not ascribing a low degree of value to the man along any dimension.

450

It makes a huge difference -

The problem with this sort of article and corroboration though -

It really depends on your perspective. If you’re viewing Cosby as Rapey McRaperson, this confirms his ill intentions.

If you’re viewing Cosby as “having done nothing wrong” - all the story tells about is a girl that got drunk on Ouzo and did…something inappropriate.

451

Context is everything. Was all 106 used as in “the ignore function” or as in general? Inquiring minds and all. :slight_smile:

452

Curious. Why does it make a huge difference?

Would it have made a difference before his testimony that the woman he rescued was with Beth Ferrier, one of the other women accusers, so they corroborated each other as well?

It did lead me to wonder how many of the Jane Does are from that modeling agency that had a house fairly close to Cosby’s house.

I went back and counted 18 regarding the ignore function in the last 3 years. I didn’t go back further.

I apologize for that post. I’m sorry that it gave the impression that you used the word ignore in regards to the ignore function far more than you did. My apologies.

453

I also noticed that two of the accusers corroborated each other / worked together.

The reason that it makes a difference to me, is because it is an “outside” contemporaneous corroboration of what went on - so it turns the account into something more than the memories / accusations of one person.

Of course - when I read the article, and what he actually confirmed there’s not much of anything there.

All it says is that
a) Girl gets drunk
b) Cosby possibly tries to kiss her while drunk, after putting her “safely?” into a bedroom
c) Male colleague goes and gets her from his house.

Like I said earlier - what his account shows will depend on your attitude towards Cosby. If you think he’s entirely guilty, co-worker saved her from a nasty rape.

If you think it’s overblown and he’s innocent - co-worker made a nasty scene and Cosby was tolerant.

454

Of course you do.

Saying a woman’s entire value is in her sexual attractiveness amounts to saying that women have no other value. Saying that women also have value in being sexually attractive does not denigrate women’s value in other areas.

This is a truism. But the issue is whether you’re insulting women in general or just the woman that the remark was directed at. Your claim is the former (which is incorrect), but here you’re falling back on the latter (which is correct).

Right. But again, calling a specific man stupid does not amount to denigrating men as a group.

Or do you disagree with this too?

455

No worries. I appreciate the correction because I like to be as accurate as possible and I obviously missed some. Also, I should’ve been clear in my original reply, since that poster brought it up, that I was specifically talking about in context of the ignore function and actually using it. Although I could indeed be a shrill harpy about it, I doubt my usage is making anyone rich over it. :stuck_out_tongue:

456

That sounds like “no true Scotsman rapes”. :wink:

Opportunity rapists don’t draw that distinction - they want sex, whether by rape or consensually.

Opportunity rapists are in the second category - they rape because they have no more moral compunctions about rape than they do about consensual sex.

No, they just want sex, and the opportunity arises and they have no moral compunction against acting on it - like date rape.

Sexual sadists do seek out rape rather than mere sex, and for them, the “rape-y” part of rape is what they want, but that is the least common form of rapist.

I don’t believe this to be accurate. Date rape is a good example - the date rapist is perfectly happy to have consensual sex if the woman agrees. He just is equally happy to rape if she doesn’t. He doesn’t seek sex so as to be refused so he can rape. He seeks sex, and will rape if he can’t get it consensually.

For the most part, that is. As mentioned, there are other, rarer motivations for rape, like sadism or the desire for dominance. But most rape is opportunity rape, which is why most rape is committed by people known to the victim. You spend more time with people you know, so the probablity of running into someone who doesn’t care if you consent or not is larger than running into a sexual sadist.

Regards,
Shodan

457

Alright, difference of opinion. Thanks for the discussion, Shodan.

458

And to you as well.

Regards,
Shodan

459

Let’s take him at his word, eh?

[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
Oh, good grief! If you’re whinging about the insult I hurled faithfool’s way, it was intended merely to imply she was a flatline when it came to sex appeal and rape never entered the picture.
[/QUOTE]

SA says it was an off-the-cuff insult to faithfool’s appearance where context was not really considered. I’ll buy that.

[QUOTE=bengangmo]
a) Girl gets drunk
b) Cosby possibly tries to kiss her while drunk, after putting her “safely?” into a bedroom
c) Male colleague goes and gets her from his house.
[/QUOTE]

I think you left out a pretty significant part of the story there.

b.2) Male colleague receives frantic phone call from disoriented girl who believes she has been drugged.
c.2.) Male colleague encounters girl in a disheveled, frightened and disoriented state.

Overreaction? Maybe. Relevant to story? Absolutely.

I think it’s also relevant that, according to the article, these one-time colleagues haven’t spoken to one another in decades, and yet he’s still willing to corroborate her story. Meaning this incident has stood out in his mind long enough without her regularly reinforcing it that he felt compelled to come forward about it. If they were longtime friends, the stakes would be higher for him not to corroborate.

[QUOTE=Shodan]
I don’t believe this to be accurate. Date rape is a good example - the date rapist is perfectly happy to have consensual sex if the woman agrees. He just is equally happy to rape if she doesn’t. He doesn’t seek sex so as to be refused so he can rape. He seeks sex, and will rape if he can’t get it consensually.

For the most part, that is. As mentioned, there are other, rarer motivations for rape, like sadism or the desire for dominance. But most rape is opportunity rape, which is why most rape is committed by people known to the victim. You spend more time with people you know, so the probablity of running into someone who doesn’t care if you consent or not is larger than running into a sexual sadist.
[/QUOTE]

I kind of wish we could internalize this reality a bit better as a society, because it’s much easier to believe someone is an opportunity rapist than they are a sexual sadist. When we marginalize or villainize rapists to this extent we make them a lot harder to recognize. And honestly? I think we make it a lot harder for them to recognize themselves.

460

This is an empirical question about what people who use the term will apply the term to.

I’m not equipped to answer that question. But to the more general issue of whether there is something wrong, whatever you want to call it, with asserting that women are to be judged in part on their sexual attractiveness–the basic idea is that there is something wrong with any statement of the form “women are to be judged in part on the degree to which they are X, to a different degree than men are to be so judged” for any X.

It is my impression that most feminists would call any such statement “misogynistic.” But again, that’s an empirical question about how a word is used. What I will definitely affirm is that there’s something wrong with making any assertion of that form.

I have not said that the remark is an insult to women in general. (I’d agree with that statement as well, but it’s a red herring, not being relevant to what I have said here.) I have said, instead, that the remark, to work as an insult, must presume something about how women are to be judged.

The target of the insult is undeniably a single person. The presumptions behind the remark concern women in general.

Again: If the remark did not presume a standard that applies to women in general, then it would lose all force of insult, because it would fail to imply that the particular target has failed to meet a presumed standard. Without that implication, no insult has taken place.

No, and as I said above, I have not argued that the remark is denigrating to women in general. (Again: While I would agree with that statement, it is not what I have argued for, and is not relevant to the argument I am making. Again: My point has not been that the remark is denigrating to women, it has been that the remark makes presumptions about how women are to be judged.)

The “stupid man” insult is not denigrating to men in general, but it does make presumptions about how men are to be judged.