1 in 5 men being a rapist is, in my opinion, bullshit.
I'd say you're right. In the US alone, that would mean there are 62,318,383.4 rapists right now. Despite that the US does have a surprisingly high rate of rape, I find the idea that there are sixty-two million rapists in the US population a bit tough to swallow. Especially considering that rape has been on a long decline in the US - the rate of occurrence is about 60% lower than it was in 1993, and that's a steady trend with little sign of changing.
Actually it'd be 31,159,191, gotta cut the population in half after all. (99% of rapists are men) And yeah, it sounds a bit high to my gut feeling, but given that in the relatively narrow number of people I know I have met at least two people who have committed rape and probably about a dozen who have been raped, a number like it doesn't seem too far off to me. I would be surprised if it were less than ten million.
Didn't call anyone a rapist explicitly. Whatever, I already apologized. At this point, I'm just curious why you are constantly being "misunderstood" in so many discussion threads that you participate in.
Didn't call anyone a rapist explicitly. Whatever, I already apologized. At this point, I'm just curious why you are constantly being "misunderstood" in so many discussion threads that you participate in.
Clique-think is not exactly a super rare thing. You can go ahead and flog this strawman if you want, but the fact is that the thread is right here, all of it, and you are free to pull quotes from it and demonstrate how I've been sexist, insensitive, in support of rape, or any of the other ridiculous things I've been accused of in this thread. Here's your opportunity, right here.
I'm not arguing your position, which will probably be a fruitless endeavor anyway. I'm just wondering why a good number of your posts are "misunderstood", and that a lot of threads you have participated in end up devolving into wall-of-text rants that lead to nowhere.
I always found the 1 in 3 cancer statistic that we have in the UK. By that logic one of my siblings or I are going to get cancer of some description.
If you live long enough, you will get cancer. I mean, technically you almost certainly have some cancerous cells in your body right now, but most of them won't get as far as a tumour or anything like that.
Don't say that I don't need that worry as well.
I think it might come from the level of personal involvement that people have in a lot of the topics that end up in flame wars. Everyone is either connected to the matter or knows someone that has been effected. It clouds there view and could make them thing that it is actually a personal attack. What could be very interesting debates by very intelligent people often devolves quickly into name calling. For instance Sketch has some very interesting views and quite good explanation, but gets buried under self hate and all that comes with it. Muppet has held his own and managed so raise some good points, however due to some of the nature of certain arguments turtles up and goes on the super defensive and stops listening. WUB is one of the smartest guys I know online but has a tendency to fall into absolutes. I just want to be Churbas friend so that we could make an awesome documentary about a comical Englishman trying to survive in the australian outback with his local friend, and the comedy that comes from that. In short your all smart people that are often saying the same thing but end up arguing the small print.
1 in 5 men being a rapist is, in my opinion, bullshit.
I'd say you're right. In the US alone, that would mean there are 62,318,383.4 rapists right now. Despite that the US does have a surprisingly high rate of rape, I find the idea that there are sixty-two million rapists in the US population a bit tough to swallow. Especially considering that rape has been on a long decline in the US - the rate of occurrence is about 60% lower than it was in 1993, and that's a steady trend with little sign of changing.
Actually it'd be 31,159,191, gotta cut the population in half after all. (99% of rapists are men) And yeah, it sounds a bit high to my gut feeling, but given that in the relatively narrow number of people I know I have met at least two people who have committed rape and probably about a dozen who have been raped, a number like it doesn't seem too far off to me. I would be surprised if it were less than ten million.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I'm tired, man, but it's no excuse to fuck up simple things like that, my apologies.
Now get on to that cuppa or something like I said, mate.
I was mostly using 1 in 5 as an average that would let me do the statistics faster. It is on the high end, but not the highest of the studies I've seen. It's probably closer to 1 in 6 to 1 in 8, but honestly that's beside the point. After all, what ratio would be okay?
After all, that is not the issue I was bringing up. Specifically. That's the kind of bullshit argument that I was trying to avoid.
I know this is a personal and emotional topic for you, but that's no excuse to totally dismiss terrible, terrible statistically analysis. Jumping over that and appealing directly to emotion is worse than just appealing directly to emotion.
The truth is that saying one rape = one rapist is as weird as saying every non virgin has had sex with only one person in their life, as that is all you need to explain how many non virgin males there are compared to non virgin females. It's just sooo not that clear cut.
1 in 5 men being a rapist is, in my opinion, bullshit.
I'd say you're right. In the US alone, that would mean there are 62,318,383.4 rapists right now. Despite that the US does have a surprisingly high rate of rape, I find the idea that there are sixty-two million rapists in the US population a bit tough to swallow. Especially considering that rape has been on a long decline in the US - the rate of occurrence is about 60% lower than it was in 1993, and that's a steady trend with little sign of changing.
Actually it'd be 31,159,191, gotta cut the population in half after all. (99% of rapists are men) And yeah, it sounds a bit high to my gut feeling, but given that in the relatively narrow number of people I know I have met at least two people who have committed rape and probably about a dozen who have been raped, a number like it doesn't seem too far off to me. I would be surprised if it were less than ten million.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I'm tired, man, but it's no excuse to fuck up simple things like that, my apologies.
Now get on to that cuppa or something like I said, mate.
I'm out of earl grey, bacon, and money to get either. I'm honestly surprised I haven't gone completely bugfuck.
I'm not arguing your position, which will probably be a fruitless endeavor anyway. I'm just wondering why a good number of your posts are "misunderstood", and that a lot of threads you have participated in end up devolving into wall-of-text rants that lead to nowhere.
No argument. Just a statement of my curiosity.
Well, my opinions on that would only start another one, but I think a lot of it has to do with differing vocabulary and contextual understanding between generations, and frankly, limited life experience and social exposures of some of the participants.
My most inflammatory posts in this thread were in response to a young woman literally saying that men should avoid saying "Hello" to her because any male attention makes her paranoid, and that was only to say that I, for one, will not refrain from looking at or speaking to women in normal, casual every day encounters for fear of triggering a PTSD episode in some tiny percent of the population. That single post brought more acrimony from other thread participants than any other single post.
I suppose I was being insensitive. I should wear a veil and walk ten steps behind while keeping my mouth shut. And yes, THAT'S insensitive sarcasm because shit, this has gotten beyond silly.
Man, why does everyone keep saying there is self-hate here? Here is what self hate sounds like.
"All men are uncontrollable rape monsters and deserve to be put down like the rabid dogs we are."
or, alternately,
"No men can be trusted, ever."
Here is what I have been saying.
"I think you'll find that more men than you are comfortable with have committed rape."
and
"I understand why some women do not trust us, and I try to make it easier on them."
Sketch, man, I'm sensitive to your upset about this topic and I understand WHY it's upsetting for you, but honestly, dude, you have a lot of self hate going on and it's not healthy.
Nobody is saying that men should be insensitive arrogant bastards and women should just suck it up and deal with it. Nobody in this thread, anyway.
Man, why does everyone keep saying there is self-hate here? Here is what self hate sounds like.
"All men are uncontrollable rape monsters and deserve to be put down like the rabid dogs we are."
or, alternately,
"No men can be trusted, ever."
Here is what I have been saying.
"I think you'll find that more men than you are comfortable with have committed rape."
and
"I understand why some women do not trust us, and I try to make it easier on them."
OI. FUCKING STOP IT. TEA TIME NOW. HAVE A SCONE FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
Being out of Earl Grey is a pity, but that's not the point, really. Just step back for a bit. Make a sandwich, fly a kite, whatever. Just take some time away for a bit and do something completely else, you'll feel better for it.
Muppet has held his own and managed so raise some good points, however due to some of the nature of certain arguments turtles up and goes on the super defensive and stops listening.
Frankly most of your analysis seems very even handed and fair and I recognize that I may have a huge blind spot in this area, but I'm intensely curious where you think I've turtled up and stopped listening. I've asked people to substantiate the arguments and assertions that they've ascribed to me and to quantify the things they've accused me of so that I can address them, pretty much universally throughout this entire thing.
I'm not arguing your position, which will probably be a fruitless endeavor anyway. I'm just wondering why a good number of your posts are "misunderstood", and that a lot of threads you have participated in end up devolving into wall-of-text rants that lead to nowhere.
No argument. Just a statement of my curiosity.
Well, my opinions on that would only start another one, but I think a lot of it has to do with differing vocabulary and contextual understanding between generations, and frankly, limited life experience and social exposures of some of the participants.
My most inflammatory posts in this thread were in response to a young woman literally saying that men should avoid saying "Hello" to her because any male attention makes her paranoid, and that was only to say that I, for one, will not refrain from looking at or speaking to women in normal, casual every day encounters for fear of triggering a PTSD episode in some tiny percent of the population. That single post brought more acrimony from other thread participants than any other single post.
I suppose I was being insensitive. I should wear a veil and walk ten steps behind while keeping my mouth shut. And yes, THAT'S insensitive sarcasm because shit, this has gotten beyond silly.
Don't start thinking that everyone on this forum is young and naive and stupid. It's easy to think because a lot of people are young and naive and stupid on this forum, but not all of us. Just ignore the RIT kids spouting memes, or make fun of them, and go on with your day.
Personally, I have animosity towards anyone who classifies themselves as a Redditor.
Well, I'm a redditor by virtue of posting on reddit but I certainly don't feel as though I'm a member of any sort of community there. I think that ship sailed a year ago when reddit passed some threshhold of popularity and became a dump, just like every popular site.
And no, I don't think EVERYONE on this forum is young and naive and stupid, but I do think that naivete has played big time into some major parallel talking in this thread.
Personally, I have animosity towards anyone who classifies themselves as a Redditor.
People actually do that? Is that like the newest evolution of "/b/-tard"? Ick.
There are definitely clusters of people referring to themselves as "redditors" and having outings, gift exchanges, and other community things between them as if reddit were one big love bunch.
I think the only thing wrong with it is that they ignore or dismiss some 97% of the reddit "community" that is absolutely horrible in order to have their "small internet town" fantasy. They should come up with some other identifier.
Well, I'm a redditor by virtue of posting on reddit but I certainly don't feel as though I'm a member of any sort of community there. I think that ship sailed a year ago when reddit passed some threshhold of popularity and became a dump, just like every popular site.
And no, I don't think EVERYONE on this forum is young and naive and stupid, but I do think that naivete has played big time into some major parallel talking in this thread.
That's fair enough. I avoid Reddit like the plague because it somehow manages to police itself even less than 4Chan, and I don't want to be part of that meltdown.
We could totally derail this thread with a whole hive of Reddit talk. I have a ton of hatred for that site and people that self-identify with it, like some sort of secret club.
We could totally derail this thread with a whole hive of Reddit talk. I have a ton of hatred for that site and people that self-identify with it, like some sort of secret club.
It honestly doesn't play a large enough part in my general consciousness for me to be annoyed by it. The only time reddit really pisses me off is when I actually go into some of the default subreddits and try to follow what is being posted there.
Going into places like reddit, it becomes easier to understand why young women think ALL men are grandstanding, insensitive assholes who think their shit doesn't stink and everybody better just get out of their way. Reddit concentrates those sort of people all in one place until they appear to be the only kind of person there is.
We could totally derail this thread with a whole hive of Reddit talk. I have a ton of hatred for that site and people that self-identify with it, like some sort of secret club.
It honestly doesn't play a large enough part in my general consciousness for me to be annoyed by it. The only time reddit really pisses me off is when I actually go into some of the default subreddits and try to follow what is being posted there.
Going into places like reddit, it becomes easier to understand why young women think ALL men are grandstanding, insensitive assholes who think their shit doesn't stink and everybody better just get out of their way. Reddit concentrates those sort of people all in one place until they appear to be the only kind of person there is.
Pretty much hitting the nail on the head there. The reason it is on my radar is because so many of my friends constantly post from it and still enjoy it. This, coupled with the fact that there is 0 administrator oversight (until they are practically ordered to) means that it also makes quite the nice home for just about any "marginalized" group, regardless of whether or not that group is marginalized for a good reason.
See: /r/mensrights or whatever they call it now. Also, whatever the latest iteration of /r/jailbait is.
I'm still pretty disgusted by /r/jailbait, even though that particular subreddit was shut down. The sheer number of subscribers was astounding, and the fact that there were SO MANY UPVOTES for topics arguing for its continued existence frankly surprised me.
Muppet has held his own and managed so raise some good points, however due to some of the nature of certain arguments turtles up and goes on the super defensive and stops listening.
Frankly most of your analysis seems very even handed and fair and I recognize that I may have a huge blind spot in this area, but I'm intensely curious where you think I've turtled up and stopped listening. I've asked people to substantiate the arguments and assertions that they've ascribed to me and to quantify the things they've accused me of so that I can address them, pretty much universally throughout this entire thing.
I was thinking in general, the medicine debate sprang to mind.
We all do things like this, hell its part of the reason why I don't post much is because I dont want to look like a knob to you guys. We're all super passionate about what we talk about, and are often saying the same thing, but our passion blinds us to other arguments. The big thing that is pissing me off is something that has been cropping up more and more is the personal attacks that some of these arguments take. It brings nothing to the discussion, devalues the debate and is really shitty debating technique. We never used to do it to this extent, and when it was done it was normally in jest. Of recent however there has been a bitter undertone, so you know...cut that shit out.
Good. Now I'm going to bed, considering that basic math is apparently beyond me.
Did I make personal attacks? I guess you could call me saying that sketchbook is self-hating a personal attack, but dude is a classic case of self-hating and it's where his argument largely springs from. It's hard to address the argument without addressing the source. I did playfully call WUB a bad name and I apologized for being a shit, which doesn't take away the fact that I did it. OK, fair enough.
Squadron -
/r/jailbait was a total abomination and the fact that the admins allow crap like that to go on sucks. I think they do a lot of hand-wringing about abridging free speech and I am sort of sympathetic to that, but having moderated my share of online communities at this point, I also understand the need for nipping certain shit in the bud.
As for /r/mensrights, it IS full of misogynistic lunatics who are very vocal and very, very ignorant, but honestly, I've gone in there once or twice recently and was surprised at some things I found: discussions of statistics, citations, scholarly articles, retractions (sometimes begrudging, but still present.) There ARE instances of discrimination against males in our society, particularly in family courts, and that shit isn't cool. It's a mistake to pit misandry against misogyny and say that either excuses the other, which is what a lot of people try to do. Both suck. Both need to go.
Clearly, one group has historically been victimized far more than the other, but that in and of itself doesn't make the "less damaged" group unworthy of a voice.
I should have made it clear, I wasn't directly talking about you, and won't name names as it won't achieve anything only more arguments. It might just be the argument style that I was schooled in but I tend to debate the theory, it doesn't matter who is presenting it. But that is just me, I know its not perfect and is far to objective however it cuts through crap a bit.
One thing that I found very interesting in the whole debate was that on one brought up male rape and the problems that came with, such as males feeling threatened in shady situations.
Why do you think you're gonna start a flame war? My tone is angry-ish, but not directed at you. Directed at Reddit's admins, mostly. Because they're shit bags who tend to ignore any criticism in the name of free speech.
I don't disagree with you on any particular point, since you don't seem to disagree with me on any specific point either.
I totally prefer internet communities being way too heavily moderated to Reddit. I've moderated communities as well, but I don't think there's a fine line when it comes to crap like child porn and "grey" areas around there. There are grey areas in other things, like criticizing political cartoons or ideological discussions (for example, I abhor Free Republic but think it's fine for it to exist despite being a festering pit of unspeakable words). But not so in the specific example of child whack-off material. Which is a term I choose specifically, because child porn denotes nudity and /r/jailbait skirted that line fairly successfully for quite some time.
Of course, this all boils down to personal choice. I choose not to go to Reddit because of reasons. Instead, I choose to participate in different online communities.
I didn't dare mention that nearly 100% of rape of men by women goes unreported, because that's just a can of worms that can stay closed as far as I'm concerned. This thread has been bad enough. Whenever something like that is mentioned, people tend to believe that the argument is that one bad thing excuses another seemingly diametrically opposed bad thing, even when that's almost never the argument being made.
And yeah, rape of men by other men, or random beatings of men by other men, which is a very similar thing that happens quite a lot, or any other violent crimes against men by men. Women don't have a monopoly on being afraid in dark alleys, but it's not productive to address that in this thread because of the above. It IS tangentially related for the purposes of demonstrating empathy, but the value of bringing it up is well exceeded by the risk of bringing it up.
Comments
No argument. Just a statement of my curiosity.
I think it might come from the level of personal involvement that people have in a lot of the topics that end up in flame wars. Everyone is either connected to the matter or knows someone that has been effected. It clouds there view and could make them thing that it is actually a personal attack. What could be very interesting debates by very intelligent people often devolves quickly into name calling. For instance Sketch has some very interesting views and quite good explanation, but gets buried under self hate and all that comes with it. Muppet has held his own and managed so raise some good points, however due to some of the nature of certain arguments turtles up and goes on the super defensive and stops listening. WUB is one of the smartest guys I know online but has a tendency to fall into absolutes. I just want to be Churbas friend so that we could make an awesome documentary about a comical Englishman trying to survive in the australian outback with his local friend, and the comedy that comes from that. In short your all smart people that are often saying the same thing but end up arguing the small print.
Now get on to that cuppa or something like I said, mate.
"All men are uncontrollable rape monsters and deserve to be put down like the rabid dogs we are."
or, alternately,
"No men can be trusted, ever."
Here is what I have been saying.
"I think you'll find that more men than you are comfortable with have committed rape."
and
"I understand why some women do not trust us, and I try to make it easier on them."
I know this is a personal and emotional topic for you, but that's no excuse to totally dismiss terrible, terrible statistically analysis. Jumping over that and appealing directly to emotion is worse than just appealing directly to emotion.
The truth is that saying one rape = one rapist is as weird as saying every non virgin has had sex with only one person in their life, as that is all you need to explain how many non virgin males there are compared to non virgin females. It's just sooo not that clear cut.
My most inflammatory posts in this thread were in response to a young woman literally saying that men should avoid saying "Hello" to her because any male attention makes her paranoid, and that was only to say that I, for one, will not refrain from looking at or speaking to women in normal, casual every day encounters for fear of triggering a PTSD episode in some tiny percent of the population. That single post brought more acrimony from other thread participants than any other single post.
I suppose I was being insensitive. I should wear a veil and walk ten steps behind while keeping my mouth shut. And yes, THAT'S insensitive sarcasm because shit, this has gotten beyond silly.
Nobody is saying that men should be insensitive arrogant bastards and women should just suck it up and deal with it. Nobody in this thread, anyway.
Being out of Earl Grey is a pity, but that's not the point, really. Just step back for a bit. Make a sandwich, fly a kite, whatever. Just take some time away for a bit and do something completely else, you'll feel better for it.
Personally, I have animosity towards anyone who classifies themselves as a Redditor.
And no, I don't think EVERYONE on this forum is young and naive and stupid, but I do think that naivete has played big time into some major parallel talking in this thread.
I think the only thing wrong with it is that they ignore or dismiss some 97% of the reddit "community" that is absolutely horrible in order to have their "small internet town" fantasy. They should come up with some other identifier.
Also it's a hive of scum and villainy.
Going into places like reddit, it becomes easier to understand why young women think ALL men are grandstanding, insensitive assholes who think their shit doesn't stink and everybody better just get out of their way. Reddit concentrates those sort of people all in one place until they appear to be the only kind of person there is.
See: /r/mensrights or whatever they call it now. Also, whatever the latest iteration of /r/jailbait is.
I'm still pretty disgusted by /r/jailbait, even though that particular subreddit was shut down. The sheer number of subscribers was astounding, and the fact that there were SO MANY UPVOTES for topics arguing for its continued existence frankly surprised me.
We all do things like this, hell its part of the reason why I don't post much is because I dont want to look like a knob to you guys. We're all super passionate about what we talk about, and are often saying the same thing, but our passion blinds us to other arguments. The big thing that is pissing me off is something that has been cropping up more and more is the personal attacks that some of these arguments take. It brings nothing to the discussion, devalues the debate and is really shitty debating technique. We never used to do it to this extent, and when it was done it was normally in jest. Of recent however there has been a bitter undertone, so you know...cut that shit out. Is that a no on the sitcom then.
Squadron -
/r/jailbait was a total abomination and the fact that the admins allow crap like that to go on sucks. I think they do a lot of hand-wringing about abridging free speech and I am sort of sympathetic to that, but having moderated my share of online communities at this point, I also understand the need for nipping certain shit in the bud.
As for /r/mensrights, it IS full of misogynistic lunatics who are very vocal and very, very ignorant, but honestly, I've gone in there once or twice recently and was surprised at some things I found: discussions of statistics, citations, scholarly articles, retractions (sometimes begrudging, but still present.) There ARE instances of discrimination against males in our society, particularly in family courts, and that shit isn't cool. It's a mistake to pit misandry against misogyny and say that either excuses the other, which is what a lot of people try to do. Both suck. Both need to go.
Clearly, one group has historically been victimized far more than the other, but that in and of itself doesn't make the "less damaged" group unworthy of a voice.
Flamewar round 2? :-P
One thing that I found very interesting in the whole debate was that on one brought up male rape and the problems that came with, such as males feeling threatened in shady situations.
I don't disagree with you on any particular point, since you don't seem to disagree with me on any specific point either.
I totally prefer internet communities being way too heavily moderated to Reddit. I've moderated communities as well, but I don't think there's a fine line when it comes to crap like child porn and "grey" areas around there. There are grey areas in other things, like criticizing political cartoons or ideological discussions (for example, I abhor Free Republic but think it's fine for it to exist despite being a festering pit of unspeakable words). But not so in the specific example of child whack-off material. Which is a term I choose specifically, because child porn denotes nudity and /r/jailbait skirted that line fairly successfully for quite some time.
Of course, this all boils down to personal choice. I choose not to go to Reddit because of reasons. Instead, I choose to participate in different online communities.
And yeah, rape of men by other men, or random beatings of men by other men, which is a very similar thing that happens quite a lot, or any other violent crimes against men by men. Women don't have a monopoly on being afraid in dark alleys, but it's not productive to address that in this thread because of the above. It IS tangentially related for the purposes of demonstrating empathy, but the value of bringing it up is well exceeded by the risk of bringing it up.