What is your opinion of this comment: consentual sex and rape

In My Humble Opinion
61

Okay, but it’s also perfectly valid to interpret such a question as asking “what is your opinion of the general truth of this comment?”. This forum is not titled In My Personal Experience.

And to extrapolate from “Here’s my personal experience relevant to this comment” to the sentiment that “Agreeing with this comment is basically saying I’m a liar” is IMO an entirely unjustified leap. Someone can have an opinion that disagrees with your experience, or even not be convinced that your account of your experience is objectively reliable, without accusing you of deliberately distorting the truth, i.e., lying.

:confused: I proposed what I considered three possible explanations of that statement, none of which included actual lying on Melbourne’s part. If, after that, you’re still going to insist that my finding the statement highly implausible implies that I’m calling it a lie, I think we’ve moved beyond the sphere of rational argument.

:dubious: You’re asking for empirical data confirming the existence of slut-shaming? Because according to the personal experience of you and Melbourne there is none or at least not much of it?

Do you agree that the empirical data in the studies and books cited in this article, for example, indicate otherwise?

62

No. Will you please stop trying to put words in my mouth and portray me with motives that I do not possess?
I am asking for it because you said it exists, and you said that it’s unreasonable for people to expect their own interpretation of their “views and experience” to invalidate massive amounts of empirical evidence on the other side.

In case it is not completely obvious, I am trying to be as reasonable as I can and trying to broaden my horizons to things that are outside of my own personal experience. I’m trying to hear the other view.

There appears to be some interesting reading there. I’m not sure it’s quite what I envisioned by the term ‘empirical data’ - I was expecting stats etc, but I will read it in depth including all the links.

63

Seems to me it’s the other way around, tbh, especially the “calling another poster a liar” part.

No, I am not trying to insinuate that you have discreditable motives. I think what we’ve got here is mostly what I previously described as failure of recognition: the empirical evidence of the ubiquity of slut-shaming of women by men is a constantly lived reality for women, but an unexpected horizon-broadening discovery for men.

64

What do you think the word ‘implausible’ means? Did you perhaps mean something else? Calling someone’s earnest assertion implausible, whatever you follow it up with, is quite close to calling it untruth.

I think the key issue here is whether this stuff is happening within my sphere of experience, right under my nose, and I’m simply oblivious to it, or whether it’s happening beyond my current horizon. I feel like I am a moderately intelligent and someone perceptive person, quite sensitive to many other interpersonal and social issues. I tend to think the latter - this isn’t happening to a significant degree in my limited social circle.
Do you think it’s possible for a person to have such an experience (without being a hermit)?

If this is going on under my nose and I am oblivious; tell me what to look for.

65

:confused: :confused: Why are you arbitrarily excluding “wrong” or “mistaken” as an option? I can think an earnest assertion is implausible without in any way believing that the asserter is lying about it.

I hope and trust that explicit slut-shaming isn’t going on in your personal social circle, and if you say it doesn’t appear to be then I take your word for it.

But it’s very possible that when it comes to the wider world, you’ve simply failed to notice evidence about slut-shaming that’s been there all along, and that people who are affected by the phenomenon are much more aware of than you are.

To take a similar example, until the Black Lives Matter movement blew up I had almost no notion of the extent to which black people are disproportionately hassled by police, or regarded suspiciously in stores, and so forth. I likewise regard myself as a moderately intelligent and perceptive person, but I just wasn’t aware of this. And it was never mentioned to me by black people I knew, although I’m sure they were aware of it.

66

Because ‘implausible’ doesn’t really mean that - it means ‘provoking disbelief’, ‘dubious’ or ‘unlikely’. It implies that the thing labelled implausible is not just wrong, but also untruthful
If you intended to mean simply incorrect, then OK. I think a different choice of word would have served your intent much better.

That seems quite possible; there are many things that I don’t pay any attention to - for example, celebrity gossip, reality TV, fashion news, and many other popular media topics - it’s entirely possible that the majority of this shaming behaviour happens in places I don’t frequent.

67

Main thing to me is the comparison aspect of the statement. Men ‘shame women who have a lot of sex etc’ more than they shame rapists’.

It is more common IME for men to make disparaging comments about women who have a lot of sex partners (I think more than ‘a lot of sex’ per se) than make disparaging comments about male rapists. Not that all men disparage female promiscuity or in all situations. For example if I get together with some of my brothers in law and husbands of my cousins, older family guys (small letters :slight_smile: ) all, we are not going to start talking about ‘sluts’. Sex oriented stuff basically doesn’t come up. That doesn’t make us perfect, but in practical reality that’s not the conversation at all. Whereas I can think of all male work environments of mine years ago where the conversation was often heavily focused on sex and even if it wasn’t disparaging women for having lots of sex partners, it would be loaded with other unacceptable comments, by either the traditional gentlemanly behavior standards which tend to prevail in my extended family, or modern PC standards. Those two standards aren’t always at odds.

However, men less frequently discuss how they feel about rapists, I believe because it’s understood in almost all social circles that rape is inexcusable behavior. I’ve been lucky to never be in a social environment where I heard rape favorably spoken of. So in that sense I can see guys rejecting ‘men condemn female promiscuity more than they do rape’ idea, not in their minds. OTOH female promiscuity being mentioned in traditionally impolite and/or non-PC ways more often than rape is brought up and condemned, that’s probably true, IME.

68

I think it’s more common than what a lot of people here want to admit.

If you ask most men if rape is bad, they’ll certainly agree. Where it starts to get murky is what you constitute as rape. Most people will picture a strange man in the shadows with a knife, which is usually NOT what actually happens. Usually it’s someone the woman knows, and is likely seeing voluntarily. If you instead picture a scenario where I woman was at a party, gets drunk, flirts openly with a number of men and ends up taken advantage of, fewer men (and honestly, people in general - women do this as well) will see it as rape.

Honestly, I still feel most men would say that’s still rape, because I feel most men are good people. But I feel there’s a larger amount that would say, “eh, that’s not reeeeeally rape, though,” then with the first example I gave.

69

Noted. But it does seem pretty peculiar to me to argue that that definition necessarily implies, or even typically implies, a deliberate lie. I use the term “implausible” all the time to describe statements that were uttered sincerely but that seem out of sync with reality in some way or other, and I don’t recall anyone else ever misunderstanding my meaning the way you have.

As you note, there are necessarily many real-life places and media “places” you don’t frequent—e.g., stock car racing forums? anime festivals? Tom Clancy fandom? locker rooms? frat parties?—not just the stereotypically “girly” ones that you mention. And slut-shaming doesn’t happen only in the “girly” places.

Likewise, it’s entirely possible that when you see evidence of slut-shaming on the periphery of your experience, on the boundaries of any of those non-frequented places, you simply don’t notice it. Because it doesn’t really affect you, so it just doesn’t really register.

70

I think I agree with this, though it would be good for you to elaborate on what you intend “ubiquity” to mean. Is your experience that the majority of woman have probably observed or experienced some slut shaming by men, and/or experienced men hand-waving away the seriousness of sexual harrassment or assault? If so, I fully believe this. However, I hope you are not implying that as a result the majority of men have these attitudes - while I consider this to be possible, it does not seem to be a necessary condition to result in women experiencing what they do, and it may be that people in this thread are talking past each other to some extent. If Leaffan and others were interpreting the original statement to suggest that the majority of men (and by implication, them) have these attitudes, I could see how it could cause offense.

If, say, 1/10 men were slut-shamers, then most women would likely interact with a few on a daily basis, and thus could feel that the attitudes were ubiquitous - while it could remain true that the majority of men don’t have that attitude. So both you and Mangetout could be correct in your observations. I also think it is likely that many men don’t observe the expression of these attitudes, because it is easy to miss things that aren’t aimed at you.

Obviously, the fact that women could be experiencing these attitudes consistently IS a problem, so we should definitely be calling out these attitudes and behaviours when we see them. Just because something is true doesn’t mean that it can’t come across as offensive though - like suggesting that the black community needs to denounce criminal attitudes to a greater extent.

71

No, I hope and believe that the majority of men would do neither of those things. But I think a lot of men, possibly even the majority, are conditioned by baked-in societal patriarchy to think that “slutty” behavior by women is a bad and shameful thing, while “boys will be boys”-type behavior that they don’t immediately equate with “real” rape (even if legally it does qualify as rape, or some other form of sexual assault) is normal and forgivable. Meanwhile, most men think of “real” rape as a horrific crime that of course is naturally and severely punished by society, so explicitly expressing disapproval of it would be redundant and unnecessary.

So it doesn’t seem unrealistic to me to suggest that men as a group actually end up expressing more criticism of “slutty” women than of rapey men, and that most men aren’t even aware of this disparity. I recognize that “doesn’t seem unrealistic to me” is not objective evidence, but then again neither is “I think it’s total bullshit”.

72

If you respond to someone using the term ‘your highly implausible claim’, you’re asserting disbelief in their veracity. This isn’t my misunderstanding of the word, it’s yours.

I mean, try it in some other contexts; a woman says to a police officer that she was sexually assaulted just a moment ago; the police officer looks around; there is no sign of an attacker anywhere. “Now, about your highly implausible claim, miss…”

73

OK, for fun, I googled the exact phrase ‘highly implausible claim’ and I only really found it used in two contexts:

As a synonym for ‘lie’
In discussion of supernatural beliefs, which I guess does allow for the sincerity of the claimant.

<shrug> I dunno. I still think it’s a poor choice of direct response.

74

nevernind,

75

No, wait…

BOOOO!!! Bad. Just Bad. You STARTED this freaking thing. What OP?!!! WHOSE OP?! I know damn well what your intentions are here. As I said before, this isn’t trolling, exactly, but it is sure as hell troll adjacent. You offered nothing in this this thing, just dropped a bomb and acted like you had nothing to do with it. You wanted people to dance, and you got it.

76

AFAICT, there are really two arguments going on here at cross purposes.

One, we have the “No man I know would condone a rapist. Full stop.” Two, we have the “There’s a lot of un-shamed rapey behavior that’s gone on/going on against women.”

They’re not mutually exclusive- there could well be a lot of rapey behavior going on that people never know about, and never get the chance to shame. Or, as we know, wasn’t considered worthy of shame back in the day. But it’s also safe to say that for behavior considered rapey at the time, there has never been much if any toleration on the part of men of my acquaintance.

Meanwhile, knowledge about who had slept with who was far more common, so if there was shaming of women done, it was definitely more common than shaming rapists/rapey types.

77

I’m gonna leapfrog over the ongoing crossfire here (I did read the thread but prefer to respond directly to the OP rather than the ongoing squabbling) and say that I understand and agree with the underlying point being made here while acknowledging that it’s being made in a simplistic and hyperbolic manner and is less true than it used to be.

No, #notallmen do this. No, most men don’t approve of clear and unequivocal “rape”. Yes, slut-shaming is much less of a thing than it used to be.

But the point remains (and has already been made) that a disturbing percentage of men still don’t consider a lot of actions that do constitute rape and sexual assault to be “rape” or even all that bad.

A disturbing number of men actively seek to dismiss or diminish rape allegations and actual rape and its effects (there’s one group of examples here, although this sort of thing is not remotely restricted to one particular political party).

A disturbing number of men will insinuate or outright state that rape victims are to blame in some way for their own rape - because the woman dressed provocatively, because she drank too much, because she flirted with here assailant(s) at some point, because she had slept with “a lot of men” previously (and there’s the other side of the question right there) - or that the women are lying for any number of reasons including just “being a bitch”.

And you can argue that it’s #notallmen and that of course you don’t do that (but are you sure?) and that no one you knows does that (but are you really sure?), but even if you’re right, it’s not a tiny minority that do do it. And that deserves acknowledgement, even if it could have been phrased more elegantly than the quote in the OP.

As for slut-shaming, well…if you don’t think this has been a significant practice is the past (and that it isn’t ongoing, albeit to a mercifully lesser extent), I’m not sure you’re really grounded in the reality of the situation here.

Do men shame women for having a lot of consensual sex **more **than they shame other men for rape? Currently, empirically, across the entire population of men, probably not. But I wouldn’t bet the farm on it without seeing the numbers.

78

Let’s say I’m sufficiently well-informed to know that rape doesn’t just involve the cases with a masked knife-wielding man in a darkened alley, and that, as far as I can tell, no one I know does the other kinds…

Interesting question, and I honestly do like to challenge my own assumptions. How could I become really sure? Wouldn’t I have to pry extensively into people’s otherwise-private lives to discover these other cases that are currently flying under my radar? Would that be justifiable (given that much of it, I suspect would just be prying with no discovery of anything untoward)?

79

This. This is the intent of the original statement. A lot more attention is put societally on women for promiscuity than on men for aggressive sexual behavior that includes groping and other forms of assault.

Yes.

I, too, find it difficult to believe you and Melbourne are not exposed to this kind of slut-shaming. If so, I congratulate you on having such fine social circles.

But have you really not experienced incidents? Like, there’s an old joke: “a slut is a woman who has sex with everyone, a bitch is a woman who has sex with everyone but you.”

Or the kind of comments made about Pamela Anderson Lee when her sex tape surfaced. Or the line from an old movie about a cheerleader who “dates the whole team; not individual members on the team, the whole team.” People on this board have introduced me to terms like “the town bicycle - everyone goes for a ride” or “mattress” as cited in this thread.

Hell, the whole “good girls don’t have sex until the third date” is all about slut-shaming.

Sadly, I have to admit I’ve been that guy before. My attitude has changed and I try to be more cognizant of those ideas.

Whereas, I once overheard a couple of college girls discussing an incident where some guy they knew took a girl out somewhere and then required her to give him a hand job before he would take her home. And when I expressed that he was a creep, they jumped on me because I didn’t know him.

And there’s a thread on this board where a poster recalls an incident where he witnessed a gang rape but did nothing to stop it for fear of his own safety, and then did nothing to report it for the same reason. I realize that’s not accepting rape, but it is failing to do anything about it.

Then there’s the whole niche of porn about doing creepy things with sleeping women, like rubbing dicks on their faces or ejaculating. I know, porn harbors a lot of fantasy elements that aren’t all real, but I shudder to think of all the high school and college boys getting their lessons on behavior from the Internet.

Plus, there’s the aforementioned attitude that “he’s a good boy from a good home, he’s a churchgoer, he wouldn’t rape someone.” “He could have any woman he wanted, he couldn’t have raped anyone, he doesn’t need to.” Hell, a judge recently let a guy off on rape conviction with parole because the boy was an Eagle Scout.

That kind of societal attitude is real and contemporary. That’s what I think of when I read the Op’s statement.

80

I find it deeply sad that the very people yearning for a better world in every place can’t believe that there could be places where it could exist (to some degree or in some form) already.

Not really, and I don’t understand the relevance of the ‘joke’ to this conversation, or indeed the rest of your horrific list.

I was a nerdy loner at school. In my teen and early twenties, I guess I saw some of this sort of behaviour in the circles I wished to inhabit at that time, but never really fit into these social groups. In my mid twenties, I met and married a woman who is kind, lovely and civilised, and in nearly 30 years of marriage, she has been (amongst very many things), I think, a superb influence upon me.

I can think of one or two examples of monstrous male managers in workplaces early in my career, who, thinking back to their observable behaviours, were quite probably committing acts of sexual assault or violence on their staff (and I guess, social circle and partners). Insofar as I have seen unacceptable behaviour in workplaces otherwise, it has consisted of anger management issues, bullying, misconduct, bad customer behaviour, etc - some of this was gender-related, but not in a way that involved sexual violence (and the victims were both female and male)

My life today consists of working in IT, managing a small team in which we embrace diversity, in a workplace where there could probably be many opportunities for horrible people to abuse each other, but this does not happen; in fact it is quite supportive and social, because we have received great training on equalities, personal interaction, conduct and handling of complaint and grievance.

Most of my personal time is taken up in running a family-friendly youtube channel, and even the comments section there is a haven of sanity and generally good nature. I live in a place where there is a good informal sense of community. I walk my dog and have nice conversations with other dog owners; I know a few of my neighbours and sometimes we eat together or chat about life.

I’m not saying sexual violence doesn’t happen near me geographically; there are many places I don’t go, because I have no interest in them, for example - I have been in a total of two nightclubs in 50+ years of being alive, and hated both of them.
Honestly, the SDMB is probably the most challenging place I go (and I do sometimes feel uncomfortable here).

My life isn’t perfect, but it’s relatively quiet and calm, and I am far from a perfect person, but I try my best to think about how I treat others, and how I can support and nurture people I have contact with.

Perhaps I’m doing something wrong.