strawmen and choice

Certainly there is some porn that caters to those who like to see men tortured and raped (the vast majority of it geared toward men). The overwhelming majority of rape porn, however, places women and girls in the role of victim. Any moron can do a search of rape porn right now and see exactly what comes up. They will see terrorized women and sites promising viewers they will be watching real rape.

When someone has a fantasy, it's not rape. Rape means the absence of consent. If the woman fantasizes, it means she is consenting in her fantasies at least. That is not rape. Rape is defined by the absence of consent: not the type of sex, not if its rough or tender, not BDSM, but the absence of consent.

The people who are disagreeing with me don't see women at issue period. Strawman? Far from it. That they refuse to consider the experience of those women hardly speaks in their favor. They see this as entirely about their own sex lives, and not the rights of the women who appear in that porn--some the result of enslavement, or the women who are raped in response to its proliferation. Refusing to consider the reality of what goes into making that porn is far from an argument in their favor. It shows those they see those lives are too insignificant to even consider about.

If I talk to a Wall Street type who has made money off selling mortgage debt, and he's showing me his new lear jet, and I point out people have suffered in order to buy him that jet, that is far from a strawman. He doesn't argue he doesn't think or care about those people, but when he dismisses the argument as significant or relevant, he shows his view very clearly. That is exactly what posters here are doing. The mortgage holders chose to take on the debt; they chose not to pay their mortgage. Why are you denying them freedom of choice? They chose to be homeless. Just like those women who appear in porn, except of course when they don't choose at all because they are enslaved or bound through debt peonage.

Who are you to judge

How Walmart treats their employees? Who are you to judge what or whether people pay their employees? Who are you to judge whether there are fatalities in factories as a result of unsafe working conditions? Who are you to judge if a manufacturer sells a product that results in deaths? That's his private business, after all. Censors always claim "moral superior" as the reasoning behind their blatant attempts at controlling everyone.

Those are all areas progressives regularly pass judgment on, yet when it comes to considering the circumstances of those working in porn, suddenly we aren't allowed to think about that? We are supposed to pretend it's all about the consumer and that the porn workers, whether free or enslaved, are inconsequential? That rape porn has been show to increase a viewers' propensity toward committing actual rape is irrelevant. None of those questions matter because . . . why exactly? Would it be because they are only women?

The mayor of Toronto: Comedic Genius?

The Toronto mayor scandal makes me miss Chris Farley. Can't you just imagine his playing the best Rob Ford ever?

Wrong again

You haven't even bothered to read about the law or the post I directed you to. The law only makes illegal possession of porn that is already illegal to produce in the UK. Clearly that category exists if production of that porn is already illegal. You move from one demonstrably false point to another.

You chose to invoke the argument about freedom and a "police state" in THIS context of why you think violent porn should be protected under British law. Given your complete lack of understanding of the law itself, I am hardly going to take your concerns about how it's "made to be abused."

You want to pretend this is about something other than rape porn. It isn't. It's about a pornographic form that depicts or even enacts violence against women. Little could be more misogynistic than that. The UK is banning possession of illegal rape porn in an effort to diminish violence against women. That for you is symptomatic of a police state. I resent your invocation of women's bodies--my body, my safety--in some pronouncement of your rights. That you think violence against women is the minor issue (as indicated by your insistence that posters here aren't defending rape porn in denouncing this law) compared to your notion of "freedom" only confirms for me your willful disregard of what most concerns me--violence. You get disgusted all you want. For those 1 out of 3 women who have been the victim of rape and partner violence, this subject is far from abstract. I have every right to care more about rape victims than rapists and rape fantasists. You want to see depictions of those violent assaults as erotic entertainment or as a weapon in libertarian battles. Women's bodies as a proxy for men's rights: so what else is new? On one hand we have the right wingers trying to assert political control over our reproductive rights, and on the left the so-called left claiming pornography depicting violent violation of our bodies is part of their "freedom." Use your own body as a political proxy and leave mine the fuck alone.

I forgot all about this song

Until I recently ran across it on YouTube. Great song, terrible video.

Dire Straights, Romeo and Juliet

"How to spot a misogynist"

Do any of these sound familiar?

Imagine thinking the worst thing about rape is not the crime or the harm to victims

but that a man might be exposed to a PSA that mentions rape and men within the same 60s seconds?

It turns out this so-called "misandrist" PSA was made by a men's group at FSU, men who like women and don't want to see them raped, men who aren't so self-absorbed that they worry more about their egos being bruised at the mention of the word rape than the actual crime or its victims. This is a group of young men who likes and respects women and isn't so self-pitying that they see an ad that mentions the word men as an attack upon themselves. In fact, they made that PSA. These are strong men, confident enough in themselves that do not need or want to see rape victims blamed for the assaults against them. Rather than actively promoting rape culture by trying to silence victims and claim men have nothing to do with a culture that promotes sexual assault, they tell other men "don't rape her." "Don't rape her." That is all. These are not men who worry more about their warped persecution complexes than victims of sexual assault. These are allies to women and good human beings who want to see a better society.

Yet some insist rape PSAs should focus only on women, since they see women as responsible for their own assault. PSAs must never mention the word men, despite the fact that 99% of rapists are men (and 10% of victims in civil society, far more in prison). The misogynists insist they should not have to teach their sons to respect women's boundaries. Mind you this mindset is simultaneously accompanied by protestations that having sex with a drunk woman should not be considered rape. The law is irrelevant to them. This same mindset also claims women who say no really mean yes.

The students at FSU, thankfully, do not revel in such intensely misogynistic ideology. They care about women because they are human beings, friends, and partners. Astoundingly, they are concerned more about rape victims than their own egos, which clearly are far stronger and healthier than those who take offensive at PSAs directed at rapists. The self-pity some enjoy wallowing in is pathetic. This PSA was funded and created by a group of young men--men who care about women and the world they live in.


Courtesy of csziggy, a proud alumnus of Florida State University, this is the info on the group behind the video:

A PSA that targets rapists rather than victims.