Again, “That’s offensive to me!” runs the risk of understating what’s happening. I think SmartAleq says it well when she says, “makes me gag and have flashbacks.” And IME, it’s not incredibly rare for people (let’s be real most often women) who have suffered sexual violence to have similar reactions. It’s not like, “You called me a liar and I was offended,” it’s a much more visceral reaction.
I do think there are threads on rape that would be appropriate for great debates, including some that might be controversial:
Is it important to understand the mindset and motivation of rapists?
Are rapes really not about sex, in the mind of the rapist?
How should sexual violence be treated in fiction, compared to nonsexual violence?
What is the optimal law enforcement/judicial system approach to sexual violence?
Notice that none of these are academic exercises designed to explore the limits of an ethical philosophy; rather, they’re all grounded in real-world problems. They take the problem seriously.
Max, I think you have this idea that people operate, or should operate, as if they were logic machines. And that every feeling can be adequately explained to those without the same experience, if one just tries hard enough.
But you need to accept that some things can’t be fully understood without the accompanying experience, and they just need to be accepted, at least when coming from someone with that experience. If a rape survivor tells you this is how your post made them feel, you just need to accept it, and then decide what you’re going to do about it. Not every feeling from others needs to be catered to - but IMO this one definitely does. You just need to accept that talking about rape like you did causes profound pain to some people due to their experiences, and not do it anymore.
“Triggered” works, denotatively; but right-wing assholes have so thoroughly mocked the word that it’s lost a lot of its connotative heft IMO. I tend to avoid it because of the right-wing assholes. They’ve won this one, as far as I’m concerned.
Here is where I have a problem with that thread. And again, I don’t have anything against @Max_S for starting it, it was a mistake and nothing malicious.
Now, I alluded to this before in the closed ATMB thread, but essentially with that intellectual discussion you have two possible answers…
“No, even under that hypothetical I would not rape the last woman on Earth.”
“Yes, in that hypothetical I would rape the last woman on Earth.”
If everyone answers “no” there is not much to talk about. Sure, you can debate about why it’s still wrong, but that’s not much of a debate and frankly that’s diverging from the central topic which is a yes or no question. It’s not very interesting and there really isn’t much to talk about.
But if anyone answers “yes” then guess what. You have actual rape survivors who are part of the community of this board, and now they’re participating in discussion boards where a person has said that under the right circumstances they will rape someone. That is extremely, EXTREMELY fucked up. It doesn’t matter how outlandish the circumstances are. If your hypothetical is something like, “A comet is going to strike the world and kill all life and the only way to divert is to rape someone!”, not only is that the worst Jerry Bruckheimer film premise ever but it’s just ridiculous. Now matter how much sugar you try to wrap that turd in, it’s still a turd.
So basically that thread is a trap. It’s a gross ultimatum. It may have been the intent to have an interesting and logical discussion, but that is impossible with that subject. That’s why the thread was closed, and I think the suspension was to drive home how problematic it was.
All the calls for rape survivors not to click on the threads are basically this:
Assholes: You have to take care of yourself! You’re responsible for that.
Survivors: Yeah, we’re taking care of ourselves by trying to get shitty topics off the board.
Assholes: Wait, don’t take care of yourself the way you want, take care of yourself the way I tell you to!
If you think you know better than other folks what they need to do to take care of themselves, you just might be an asshole.
When you are, at this point in the thread, saying shit like “4 possible answers” complete with link, you’re not getting it. Nobody’s asking you to be shitty in a respectful manner. You’re not going to debate or categorize or properly cite your way out of this situation.
At this point I am starting to agree with people who say you’re not gonna get it. Maybe 20 years from now you’ll have the epiphany, but right now you seem to think that the approach that got you into this mess will suffice to get you out of it.
There are some points I get, but Atamasama’s point is not one of them. (The link goes to ATMB, it is a response to iiandyiiii who pointed out the same thing)
I mean, I get the point, I just don’t think it applies here. I didn’t come to a solid conclusion in the case where a woman has to decide whether to rape the man. At least one member in-thread said yes, the woman should rape the man. Nobody ever argued that a man should rape a woman.
Another concept I teach kids, especially gifted kids, is “irrelevant correction.” There was nothing in what Atamasama wrote that necessitated your correction. It comes across as a diversion. Focus.
Those are only two answers. You can’t change the gender and then multiply by two, because that’s irrelevant. Rape is rape. The fact that you don’t understand that all that matters is “Will you rape or not?” is part of the problem here.
Like what? Everything is debatable. Now whether or not everyone is a suitable participant or audience for said debate? The answer to that is obviously no. Far too many people are either dishonest or immature for certain debates and thus want such lines of thought completely shut down. But the power to control speech shouldn’t be in the hands of the outraged mob.
Are you saying that in a survival situation where their are scarce resources debates on triage or infanticide are so offensive, or rather taboo, that they can’t be morally held? That’s silly. The whole idea of utilitarian value of life is about maximizing certain properties. There are other philosophical and/or religious axioms/principles as well that one can explore. The biggest issue is that in modern western society rape is a very strong word and for many it’s worse than torture, dismemberment or death.
I do understand that which is why I don’t think I’d participate in such a thread. Especially on a forum like this.
MrDibble! I was impressed by your reasoning in that thread. You took two conflicting sets of principles and came up with a reasonable lesser of two evils solution. I disagree with your illiberalness but sometimes you come up with a gem. See what freedom of speech enables!
“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.”
The ‘in theory’ part of this discussion is the concept that anything should be a valid topic for debate in GD.
The ‘in practice’ part is that this particular topic is causing, and may continue to cause, demonstrable, severe harm to at least some of the members.
And there’s an argument about whether the topic (or any other incendiary topic) should inherently be verboten, or whether those most affected by the topic should, instead, avoid those topics (ie, on whose shoulders falleth the burden ?).
What’s the equivalent of a College of Cardinals for SDMB ? How do we pick a Pope ?
IMHO, the arguments for where these two lines should be drawn have been forcefully and repeatedly made.
Horse: dead and roundly flogged.
My point of Parliamentary procedure would be to suggest that it goes … wherever these things go … to be decided as policy for the MB and the relevant fora.
As a salient demonstration of an irrelevant correction, this is probably a quote from Benjamin Brewster, and by clarifying that, all I’ve done is to distract from your point like a pedantic asshole, and I shoulda kept quiet and paid attention to your overall point instead.
but sometimes you come up with a gem. See what freedom of speech enables!