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Feministe! calls out female rape apologists.
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/12/10/and-just-when-you-thought-the-good-men-project-couldnt-get-any-worse/
And just when you thought the Good Men Project couldn’t get any worse…
By Jill on 12.10.2012
They put up this piece by a self-identified rapist, saying that he would rather keep partying and raping than take responsibility and stop (obviously trigger warning on the rest of this piece). I’ll tell you now: There’s nothing particularly insightful or interesting about the piece, which I’m not linking to because GMP is not getting any traffic from me (the relevant bits are copied and pasted below). It’s by a dude who parties a lot, and says that because he’s so inebriated and his partners are so inebriated he just doesn’t know when he has consent or not, so he is probably a rapist (and in fact one woman told him he raped her), but also he’s a good dude and doesn’t really know and this is all so messy, and he likes partying and has just come to realize that a little raping is the price of entry to his lifestyle.
Good Men Project editor Joanna Schroeder then actually manages to make the publication decision more indefensible and despicable by publishing her explanation of why the GMP published a rapist’s story. Again, there’s nothing particularly insightful about it. It’s that Joanna thinks that alcohol and drugs cause rape. Partying makes things confusing,she says, and it’s not a rape victim’s fault exactly, but it’s apparently not a rapist’s fault exactly either. Because these things are so confusing and messy and murky! And we must talk about it and figure out why rapist rape!
That question of “why do rapists rape?” has been the defense that both Joanna and Alyssa Royse have trotted out to explain the GMP’s victim-blaming rape-apologist spree recently. They aren’t trying to justify rape —they are calling rapists rapists!, they cry —but they’re trying to figure out why rape happens, and why the rapists do it. Which is why they have written and published a series of stories insisting that rapists are often just confused or inebriated, and are decent dudes who would not have done what they did without alcohol and without mixed, confusing signals from the women they raped.
The thing is, though, anyone with even an ounce of personal or journalistic integrity would do a five-minute Google search. If they did, they would come across this. And this. And many other articles that involve actual researchers and not half-witted internet pontificators examining why men rape, and how they get away with it. And what that research has found is that it’s a small number of men who commit large numbers of rape. And that yes, they do use drugs and alcohol —but they use them to incapacitate their victims, and they know that a rape-apologist society will make the exact arguments that Joanna and Alyssa have made about alcohol making this all very fuzzy and the rapist is really a decent guy and maybe if the victim hadn’t done x, y or z this wouldn’t have happened. Which is largely why I’m so angry at Joanna and Alyssa. I don’t think that they’re being intentionally awful here, but they are being exceptionally lazy and irresponsible, and they’re promoting well-known rape myths under the guise of “wanting to know why rapists rape.” You want information?You want to learn something? Look it up. Look at the research. Do your homework. It is there. Don’t put your rape-apologist hand-waving theories in our faces and then act shocked when people who have been doing this work for a long time are offended and are asking you to please learn a little something before you spout off this dangerous nonsense.
...
And just when you thought the Good Men Project couldn’t get any worse…
By Jill on 12.10.2012
They put up this piece by a self-identified rapist, saying that he would rather keep partying and raping than take responsibility and stop (obviously trigger warning on the rest of this piece). I’ll tell you now: There’s nothing particularly insightful or interesting about the piece, which I’m not linking to because GMP is not getting any traffic from me (the relevant bits are copied and pasted below). It’s by a dude who parties a lot, and says that because he’s so inebriated and his partners are so inebriated he just doesn’t know when he has consent or not, so he is probably a rapist (and in fact one woman told him he raped her), but also he’s a good dude and doesn’t really know and this is all so messy, and he likes partying and has just come to realize that a little raping is the price of entry to his lifestyle.
Good Men Project editor Joanna Schroeder then actually manages to make the publication decision more indefensible and despicable by publishing her explanation of why the GMP published a rapist’s story. Again, there’s nothing particularly insightful about it. It’s that Joanna thinks that alcohol and drugs cause rape. Partying makes things confusing,she says, and it’s not a rape victim’s fault exactly, but it’s apparently not a rapist’s fault exactly either. Because these things are so confusing and messy and murky! And we must talk about it and figure out why rapist rape!
That question of “why do rapists rape?” has been the defense that both Joanna and Alyssa Royse have trotted out to explain the GMP’s victim-blaming rape-apologist spree recently. They aren’t trying to justify rape —they are calling rapists rapists!, they cry —but they’re trying to figure out why rape happens, and why the rapists do it. Which is why they have written and published a series of stories insisting that rapists are often just confused or inebriated, and are decent dudes who would not have done what they did without alcohol and without mixed, confusing signals from the women they raped.
The thing is, though, anyone with even an ounce of personal or journalistic integrity would do a five-minute Google search. If they did, they would come across this. And this. And many other articles that involve actual researchers and not half-witted internet pontificators examining why men rape, and how they get away with it. And what that research has found is that it’s a small number of men who commit large numbers of rape. And that yes, they do use drugs and alcohol —but they use them to incapacitate their victims, and they know that a rape-apologist society will make the exact arguments that Joanna and Alyssa have made about alcohol making this all very fuzzy and the rapist is really a decent guy and maybe if the victim hadn’t done x, y or z this wouldn’t have happened. Which is largely why I’m so angry at Joanna and Alyssa. I don’t think that they’re being intentionally awful here, but they are being exceptionally lazy and irresponsible, and they’re promoting well-known rape myths under the guise of “wanting to know why rapists rape.” You want information?You want to learn something? Look it up. Look at the research. Do your homework. It is there. Don’t put your rape-apologist hand-waving theories in our faces and then act shocked when people who have been doing this work for a long time are offended and are asking you to please learn a little something before you spout off this dangerous nonsense.
...
This stuff isn't going away. Rapists have noticed the uptick in feminist activism and the backlash will continue to intensify as long as rape culture is increasingly challenged.
3 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
I think it's important to find ways to laugh about this stuff now and then. Otherwise it is just too much to take.
