Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: General Battuta on April 20, 2012, 07:16:35 am
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I would enjoy a Let's Play series of you figuring out that 'rape' is not a synonym for 'lose a video game'
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RAPE
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Rape can be used as a figurative term; I used it right in context, particularily as I was referring to my in-game forces getting 'raped' as opposed to myself IRL. :) Sorry, did I offend?
You didn't offend, you just showed that you've got some growing up to do.
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Rape can be used as a figurative term; I used it right in context, particularily as I was referring to my in-game forces getting 'raped' as opposed to myself IRL. :) Sorry, did I offend?
You didn't offend, you just showed that you've got some growing up to do.
Just to spite you, for the future I'm going to try to cram that word into any conversation as much as possible.
People trying to deny legitimate usage of words is a pet peeve of mine.
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Speaking of people needing to grow up.....
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Rape can be used as a figurative term; I used it right in context, particularily as I was referring to my in-game forces getting 'raped' as opposed to myself IRL. :) Sorry, did I offend?
You didn't offend, you just showed that you've got some growing up to do.
Just to spite you, for the future I'm going to try to cram that word into any conversation as much as possible.
People trying to deny legitimate usage of words is a pet peeve of mine.
I'm not sure it's 'spiteful' -- it'd be like saying 'poop poop pee pee' all the time. It just makes you sound young.
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I'm not sure it's 'spiteful' -- it'd be like saying 'poop poop pee pee' all the time. It just makes you sound young.
:nervous:
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Speaking of people needing to grow up.....
Yes, because looking down at others wiht their nose up ain the air because of usage of word you do not approve of is soooooo mature :rolleyes:
Real sign of manhood.
Look, it's real simple. I won't allow anyone to tell me I can't use a word, phrase or comparison if that word, phrase or comparison makes sense and works. Using the word "rape" is not childish.
EDIT:
New patch for BIA.
Sector inventory, LoS, milita managment and a few otehr big changes. ;7 ;7 ;7
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Look, it's real simple. I won't allow anyone to tell me I can't use a word, phrase or comparison if that word, phrase or comparison makes sense and works. Using the word "rape" is not childish.
It's at least childish and at most disrespectful. Equating by comparison a term for a serious sexual assault to a loss/setback in a [video] game shows a significant lack of maturity, sensitivity, or both. Go on using it in that context all you like, but no one is going to praise your maturity for doing so (quite the opposite in fact) - which was Battuta's point to begin with.
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Look, it's real simple. I won't allow anyone to tell me I can't use a word, phrase or comparison if that word, phrase or comparison makes sense and works. Using the word "rape" is not childish.
You're allowed to use it! You are allowed to say doo doo poop all the time and call people niggers, too. It's completely up to you!
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Look, it's real simple. I won't allow anyone to tell me I can't use a word, phrase or comparison if that word, phrase or comparison makes sense and works. Using the word "rape" is not childish.
It's at least childish and at most disrespectful. Equating by comparison a term for a serious sexual assault to a loss/setback in a [video] game shows a significant lack of maturity, sensitivity, or both. Go on using it in that context all you like, but no one is going to praise your maturity for doing so (quite the opposite in fact) - which was Battuta's point to begin with.
No, it shows you are controlling, overbearing, oversensitive and overreacting.
Equating terms have been used forever, and in far worse contexts. For example, you got plenty of different terms for death, sex or torture, and they are all often used.
If using the wrod "rape" is insensitive because rape is bad, then using the word "murder" should also be, because murder is worse.
Isn't death worse than rape?
Wouldn't using that be even more childish by comparison?
So on, your arbitary laws on what's right and what's not that have no basis in logic don't interest me.
You're allowed to use it! You are allowed to say doo doo poop all the time and call people niggers, too. It's completely up to you!
Given that we just established that context doesn't matter at all, only the usage, then your own usage of the word "poop" means you are also now being immature....
Oh dear...
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Isn't death worse than rape?
You have quite obviously never talked to a rape victim. Or tried to inform yourself on the issue.
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Isn't death worse than rape?
Most likely you'll remember RAPE.
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Isn't death worse than rape?
You have quite obviously never talked to a rape victim. Or tried to inform yourself on the issue.
Have you talkined to the family and friends of people who have been brutally murdered?
IF using the word rape is insensitive because a rape victim may read it, then using the word murder is even more insensitive, because people who lost their loved ones might read it.
Either way, how is this related to Jagged Alliance again?
EDIT:
@Titan - I heard they have no plan for brinign back the IMP. Something about causing problems with the rating?????
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Damn son, it's like a Reddit thread in here
e: I guess it's important to make clear: the difference between rape and murder is that there is no culture of murder. Murderers are psychopaths and everyone agrees they suck; college students don't pass around tips on how best to murder their classmates; attempted murder survivors aren't scared to come forward and say 'help, someone tried to murder me'; and murder isn't a joke to most of the internet demographic.
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e: I guess it's important to make clear: the difference between rape and murder is that there is no culture of murder. Murderers are psychopaths and everyone agrees they suck; college students don't pass around tips on how best to murder their classmates; attempted murder survivors aren't scared to come forward and say 'help, someone tried to murder me'; and murder isn't a joke to most of the internet demographic.
a) I don't see what difference that makes to the usage of the word. Unless you think not using the word will magicly change the world. Immoral people will do immoral things.
b) Yes, yes it is. Jokes involving death and killing are everywhere. Internet is practicly powered by death threats.
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It's about maintaining a non-creepy, non-threatening atmosphere. A bunch of guys casually dropping rape all over the place suggests to newcomers that HLP is:
1) full of neckbeards who have never really interacted with or empathized with women
2) probably not going to be very aggressive about stamping out creeps
now granted this is a 75% accurate impression butttttttttttt
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Can someone split lock all this rape stuff now? I'm sure staying on topic will be just as good for newcomer retention as not saying rape.
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Can someone split lock all this rape stuff now? I'm sure staying on topic will be just as good for newcomer retention as not saying rape.
This is a pretty interesting discussion. Split I can see, but I'm not sure why you'd want to lock it?
Of course it's certainly easier to just not think about it, that's much less stressful
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Can someone split lock all this rape stuff now? I'm sure staying on topic will be just as good for newcomer retention as not saying rape.
This is a pretty interesting discussion. Split I can see, but I'm not sure why you'd want to lock it?
Of course it's certainly easier to just not think about it, that's much less stressful
I never really had any intention of contributing to the rape topic in any meaningful way, and since the only person that really seems to be contesting your points can't post in general discussion it seems unfair to continue.
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It's about maintaining a non-creepy, non-threatening atmosphere. A bunch of guys casually dropping rape all over the place suggests to newcomers that HLP is:
1) full of neckbeards who have never really interacted with or empathized with women
2) probably not going to be very aggressive about stamping out creeps
now granted this is a 75% accurate impression butttttttttttt
I call BS.
If using the word "rape" is considered threateneing and insensitive to women (because only women can get raped?), then I question the sanity of those who feel that way.
Also, dark comedy/humor. Has been in use by humanity since it's begining. There's of course a line between funny and disgusting, but this doesn't come even close.
And yes, I do consider murder a million time worse than rape. Dead people have no life to pick up. And hypno-therapy (or thearpy of any kind) can't help them.
I don't get it why this bothers you so much or wy you feel this warranted so much discussion, but I don't really care.
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(http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-barf.gif)
but I don't really care.
tell me more about not caring
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I find that comedy involving the word 'rape' is generally used by male comics, because male rape, whilst just as damaging and violating as female rape, is far less common.
I don't find the use of the word to describe being 'vastly overpowered' very tasteful, but it is a growing trend that is becoming more accepted. 10 years ago, jokes of the Frankie Boyle ilk would never have been allowed on public TV, and that's from someone who is a fan of Frankie Boyle, he is merely a product of the 'shock tactic' media that is a growing trend.
Rape is a horrific and brutal act that can leave a person scarred physically and emotionally for the rest of their lives, I don't think something like losing a computer game spectacularly even comes close.
In some ways 'Rape' is the new 'Gay', people become numb to the meaning of it, and throw it around far too casually and often under entirely the wrong definition but the same meaning. I do not think it will stop, which is a pity, because by making the phrase 'acceptable' to use in other definitions, I think it sets a dangerous trend.
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Unlike Murder, which is dished out without regard to gender, rape is a crime with predominantly female victims. I know that this is hard for you to understand, TrashMan, but women do have feelings, and a forum where a prominent member (a global moderator, even!) can have a signature with the phrase RAPERAPERAPE in it without being called on it, or someone like you is posting about how rape is not _that_ bad is not quite as welcoming a place as it should be. I know, I didn't call the offending moderator on this either, making me just another example of the way that casual misogyny can fly under the radar on sites such as this, but should that really be an excuse to not start raising the issue once you've been made aware of it?
There's already one member of this board who has cut her ties with it over issues like these, and we are lessened for it. There are without a doubt other potential members who have looked at our site, and our posting habits and have said "no, thanks."
Converting a board such as this into a place where people are welcome regardless of gender is a hard task, but one I believe to be worthwhile.
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THREAD ROAD MAP
-men get raped too
-women need to be less sensitive!
-if i can't say rape, that's a violation of my ~free speech~ (the reddit maneuver)
-murder is a lot worse than rape because if you get murdered you're dead
-can't we just have a sense of humor any more
-i'm so tired of this political correctness bull**** that requires me to consider my privilege and the mental states of others
-beep beep boop
I'll take bets now for which one comes up first
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Both viewpoints have merit.
I agree with Battuta that throwing around words like "faggot" "rape" "nigger" and likewise, will make you appear immature.
On the other hand I do agree with Trashman that it's silly to make such big deal about political correct usage of words.
When someone tells me that his team got 'raped' by the enemy team. I know that he means that his team got brutally slaughtered and murdered. Not non-consensually ****ed in the butt.
Likewise, when he tells me that he got '****ed over' by one of his team mates, I will understand that his team mate was so grossly incompetent that he dragged his whole team down. Not that he non-consensually ****ed his team in the butt.
I've seen you use the word ****, Battuta. Why is this word acceptable for you but rape is not?
(This topic reminds me of the hilarious drama of the penny arcade Dickwolves :lol:)
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-can't we just have a sense of humor any more
I was going to bet on this, but I think Spoon's post already qualifies?
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I don't think it does.
What I'm trying to get at that its about context. That the meaning of the word 'rape' is different depending on its usage. Just like '****' is.
I'm not saying that actual rape is funny. What I found funny about the dickwolves was the massively overblown drama that followed because of a simple webcomic.
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Both viewpoints have merit.
I agree with Battuta that throwing around words like "faggot" "rape" "nigger" and likewise, will make you appear immature.
On the other hand I do agree with Trashman that it's silly to make such big deal about political correct usage of words.
When someone tells me that his team got 'raped' by the enemy team. I know that he means that his team got brutally slaughtered and murdered. Not non-consensually ****ed in the butt.
Likewise, when he tells me that he got '****ed over' by one of his team mates, I will understand that his team mate was so grossly incompetent that he dragged his whole team down. Not that he non-consensually ****ed his team in the butt.
I've seen you use the word ****, Battuta. Why is this word acceptable for you but rape is not?
(This topic reminds me of the hilarious drama of the penny arcade Dickwolves :lol:)
That's a good question and like almost everything in this debate doesn't have any easy answer.
I make my decisions about what I'm comfortable with based on utility. I spend a ton of time with women - most of my best friends are women active in traditionally male fields like programming, science, and SF/F writing. They're all pretty tough and they've spent a lot of time on the internet.
When they start to feel uncomfortable, it's usually because a phrase, or a word, or a running joke is based on the implicit assumption that the audience is entirely male. A lot of women find kitchen jokes and rape jokes ****ing hilarious, but they're still uncomfortable with them because they seem to reinforce norms that are problems for them: for example, the norm of male competence in computer science means a lot of women miss out on promotions and raises, or have to deal with constant sexual harassment.
There's the idea of what's called a 'chilling effect' -- that women can't speak up about what makes them feel marginalized or ignored because they want to fit in and get along. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect_%28law%29)
So, to bring this back to the topic at hand: I don't think '****' is a problem because everybody gets ****ed. I think 'rape' is a problem not simply because of what the word means but because of the whole complex women have to deal with: rape culture in real life, the assumption of masculinity on the internet, the 'boys club' nature of communities like this, the norm of sexual harassment in said communities. Using the word 'rape' casually is like throwing up a flag which says 'rape isn't a big deal for me. I don't have to worry about it. It's a lot like being beaten in a video game.' Is '****' also problematic? Yeah, maybe. I haven't thought about it enough.
In short: I trust women, I don't think they're hysterical or overreactive, and if they start to - cautiously, in many cases, afraid of causing drama - express a little discomfort, I prefer to listen.
I had a friend recently who came to play in our BSG board game group. She had a fantastic time and everyone enjoyed her - she was a talented player and very friendly. Afterwards, she said to me: 'that was fun, but really, did they need to use 'rape' so often? Every time it came out I remembered I was the only woman at the table.' If she hadn't confided in me, no one would have known; and if she were a rape survivor, or the friend of one, we would've been triggering those memories every time it happened.
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tell me more about not caring
About you? Not in the least.
I don't find the use of the word to describe being 'vastly overpowered' very tasteful, but it is a growing trend that is becoming more accepted.
Vastly overpowered? Heard it used for that, but the context of use is usually hurt in a really bad way. Or an action that ruins something irrevocably.
Examepl: "Lucas raped my childhood memories!"
At the end of the day it's just a word. A stirng of letter. There's an old saying: "stick and stones can break my bones, but words cannot hurt me".
Unlike Murder, which is dished out without regard to gender, rape is a crime with predominantly female victims. I know that this is hard for you to understand, TrashMan, but women do have feelings, and a forum where a prominent member (a global moderator, even!) can have a signature with the phrase RAPERAPERAPE in it without being called on it, or someone like you is posting about how rape is not _that_ bad is not quite as welcoming a place as it should be.
E, I couldn't care les if you were President of the world. And I care even less for your patronizing and implying I'm insensitive and don't understand women have feelings. And being a women makes precious little difference, statisticly. Unless you want to claim that every women must be insulted by that usage because they are more likely to get raped?
Plenty of things aren't nice. Prostate cancer aint nice. Does that mean that any prostate-cancer related joke, comparion or worb usage must be banned? Hell, for all you know I may have prostate cancer.
Or if you want to talk about murder - there was a war in my country recently. I've seen things. Do you think seeing aquaintances and friends killed scars you for life? Do you see me looking down on anyone who ever mentions the world murder/kill? How abut comedic violence?
And yes rape isn't _that_ bad. I said it. And I will say it agian. Becasue it objectively isn't. I'm sure the victim of rape naturally doesn't feel that way (I'm sure plenty of people don't feel that way), but I'm also sure the victim of murder or any kind of abuse wouldn't feel the same either. Except victims of murders can't complain about it.
You speak about a welcoming place, but a place where poeple overreact and turn into Grammar (and other kinds) of natzi's is equally unwelcoming.
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And yes rape isn't _that_ bad.
I'm sure the victim of rape naturally doesn't feel that way
lulz wtf am i reading lol i dunno derp beep beep boop
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But Lucas didn't 'rape your childhood', that's the whole point, your childhood happened years ago and was long in the past when the prequels came out, so it is not an accurate phrase at all. Your childhood is intact and unblemished, it's only the present that was so offensive. It's exactly what I mean by misuse of the word.
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And yes rape isn't _that_ bad. I said it. And I will say it agian. Becasue it objectively isn't.
oh okay i hadn't realized
i'm glad we have someone objective here to cut through all those hysterical wailing women
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-i'm so tired of this political correctness bull**** that requires me to consider my privilege and the mental states of others
It goes both ways. It's not uncommon to go trough life and hear thing you do not want, things that are you personal berserk bottun or things you find offensive.
Yet it's not my right to deman other to change their speech patterns and their behaviors just to appease my tender sensibilities. Other people don't walk around on eggshells for me. And I don't expect them too.
Discomfort is common. I'm feeling discomfort 90% of the friggin day.
You deal with it. The more you dwell on it, the more it will linger.
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colon cancer: it's a lot like rape. i was raped by my colon cancer. i was also raped when people told me to stop saying 'rape'. it felt like having a tent peg put into my ass. it was uncomfortable. i feel discomfort 90% of the day now. these situations are objectively all very similar.
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When someone tells me that his team got 'raped' by the enemy team. I know that he means that his team got brutally slaughtered and murdered. Not non-consensually ****ed in the butt.
Hold up.
What you have just illustrated is that when someone uses the word 'rape' in the context of a result of a game, they aren't actually referring to the denotative meaning of the term 'rape,' which shoots the argument that TrashMan is making that he's using the word in its correct meaning right through the foot.
Here's the thing that the anti-political-correctness crowd frequently fails to get (and keep in mind I don't care for the vast majority of PC bull**** out there, but there's an important distinction to be made):
When you use language, it has both connotative and denotative meanings. For example, the denotative meaning of 'gay' is happy, or homosexual. The contextual connotative meaning of someone saying "that's gay" is that they are actually saying "that's stupid/ridiculous." This is one of the ways language is used to alter public sentiment or subvert language to express a politicized meaning. The common modern usage (among the young and the immature) of the word 'rape' when someone says "I hope I don't get raped at [game/activity/etc]" is to mean "I hope I don't fail / become a victim / lose /etc." It's taking a word that has a horrific meaning and repurposing it to lessen the actual nature of the acts it denotatively describes, marginalizing a victimized population even further.
I know that sounds like a lot of sociological/psychological drivel, but language is a tool used for communicating hidden as well as overt meanings, and the speed with which particular forms of language are adopted by younger generations often means a term or phrase enters common usage with a meaning it never had, and loses or alters its denotative meaning. The fact that people are willing to use the word "rape" to describe the outcome of a video game knowing full well that it actually refers to one of if not the most despicable and horrific acts one person can perpetrate on another (and gender doesn't really enter into this, other than to say that most documented cases are male on female) is a pretty good commentary on how meaning gets subverted to minimize acts that some segments of the population condone or at least do not condemn.
Meaning is important. Many people aren't careful with how they convey it, particularly young people who are just learning this lesson. This is why it's important for younger forumites like Titan to receive that feedback in a constructive way rather than reach their twenties and thirties and figure out that every reasonable person around them thinks they're a complete and total asshole because of the way they use language. Again, meaning doesn't just convey opinion, but it lets other people form opinion of the person who is conveying the meanining - hence why the usage of the word rape in this context makes me say that anyone doing it is childish, immature, disrespectful, or all of the above.
Unfortunately, this is a point that seems to be sailing right by TrashMan repeatedly. It really doesn't upset me that you feel the need to use the word 'rape' in that context, but it does make me form my own judgements about the type of person you are based on the way you communicate. This is more and more important as people put more about themselves on the Internet - other people are not just attuned to the meaning you convey, but also the way in which you convey it.
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I had a friend recently who came to play in our BSG board game group. She had a fantastic time and everyone enjoyed her - she was a talented player and very friendly. Afterwards, she said to me: 'that was fun, but really, did they need to use 'rape' so often? Every time it came out I remembered I was the only woman at the table.' If she hadn't confided in me, no one would have known; and if she were a rape survivor, or the friend of one, we would've been triggering those memories every time it happened.
In other words, she is reminded she is a woman by the word rape? Soo...what is the problem with being a woman? Your friend almost sounds like she's ashamed she is one.
Unless she was raped, I'd say the problem is with her, not the word.
i'm glad we have someone objective here to cut through all those hysterical wailing women
And I'm sure if dead men coudl talk, you'd have to deal with all the hysterical wailing men (and women...murder more equal opportunity).
But if you claim that it cannot be objectively measured..then you can't claim the contrary either.
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Here is my explanation as to why Rape is a perfectly useful description for getting your ass kicked in a game.
Rape in a videogame is when:
You get your ass handed to you so badly that you feel HUMILIATED AND VIOLATED ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
Just like real rape.
And so, Rape, when used in the context of say "League of Legends" (which is an exercise of misery in itself), is perfectly acceptable. Because no other word brings the same mental imagery as Rape when you get utterly destroyed by 4-5 enemy players at the same time and your teammates are no where to be seen to save your ass from the coming humiliation and violation.
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You can never win a game of tennis against a wall. You might serve up some great shots but the wall doesn't care, its a wall.
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Here is my explanation as to why Rape is a perfectly useful description for getting your ass kicked in a game.
Rape in a videogame is when:
You get your ass handed to you so badly that you feel HUMILIATED AND VIOLATED ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
Just like real rape.
I don't think losing a video game is anything 'just like real rape'. It's not something which is a source of enormous shame for both men and women, or something with thousands of years of history, or something that we learn from a young age is a good reason for suicide or self-immolation.
Don't get me wrong, I've used the term too, but I think it's important to think about it and what you're actually saying: 'I'm so unconcerned about rape that it's about as important to me as losing a video game.' That's not a privilege women have.
having to play league of legends is pretty bad though i'll give you that
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When you use language, it has both connotative and denotative meanings. For example, the denotative meaning of 'gay' is happy, or homosexual. The contextual connotative meaning of someone saying "that's gay" is that they are actually saying "that's stupid/ridiculous." This is one of the ways language is used to alter public sentiment or subvert language to express a politicized meaning. The common modern usage (among the young and the immature) of the word 'rape' when someone says "I hope I don't get raped at [game/activity/etc]" is to mean "I hope I don't fail / become a victim / lose /etc." It's taking a word that has a horrific meaning and repurposing it to lessen the actual nature of the acts it denotatively describes, marginalizing a victimized population even further.
I know that sounds like a lot of sociological/psychological drivel, but language is a tool used for communicating hidden as well as overt meanings, and the speed with which particular forms of language are adopted by younger generations often means a term or phrase enters common usage with a meaning it never had, and loses or alters its denotative meaning. The fact that people are willing to use the word "rape" to describe the outcome of a video game knowing full well that it actually refers to one of if not the most despicable and horrific acts one person can perpetrate on another (and gender doesn't really enter into this, other than to say that most documented cases are male on female) is a pretty good commentary on how meaning gets subverted to minimize acts that some segments of the population condone or at least do not condemn.
Meaning is important. Many people aren't careful with how they convey it, particularly young people who are just learning this lesson. This is why it's important for younger forumites like Titan to receive that feedback in a constructive way rather than reach their twenties and thirties and figure out that every reasonable person around them thinks they're a complete and total asshole because of the way they use language. Again, meaning doesn't just convey opinion, but it lets other people form opinion of the person who is conveying the meanining - hence why the usage of the word rape in this context makes me say that anyone doing it is childish, immature, disrespectful, or all of the above.
So how is "my team got murdered" any better?
And I do wonder why a word having multieel meanings suddenly marginalizes the victim?
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Problem is, there's a worrying level of misogyny involved in the idea that rape 'isn't that terrible' purely because you can survive it. You can survive Cancer.
I have worked with and talked to women who have been sexually abused in various ways, be it by members of family, friends or complete strangers, though I haven't spoken to any men in the same position, or at least, have admitted to it (there is a far greater stigma attached to admitting being the victim of sexual assault when you are male) and whilst many of them have indeed managed to cope with the damage and get on with their lives, it is a violation that never quite goes away, you spend the rest of your life struggling to trust people.
As I said before, I don't think it will go away, but that doesn't make it right. I don't think slavery will go away entirely, or racism, or homophobia, but the more casually we approach the subject, the less serious it becomes, and that makes it far harder for the victims of actual rape to get people to understand what is so terrible about it.
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Good posts Battuta&MP-Ryan
I have nothing more to say.
And so, Rape, when used in the context of say "League of Legends" (which is an exercise of misery in itself), is perfectly acceptable. Because no other word brings the same mental imagery as Rape when you get utterly destroyed by 4-5 enemy players at the same time and your teammates are no where to be seen to save your ass from the coming humiliation and violation.
Hahaha true that :p
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Good posts Battuta&MP-Ryan
I have nothing more to say.
And so, Rape, when used in the context of say "League of Legends" (which is an exercise of misery in itself), is perfectly acceptable. Because no other word brings the same mental imagery as Rape when you get utterly destroyed by 4-5 enemy players at the same time and your teammates are no where to be seen to save your ass from the coming humiliation and violation.
Hahaha true that :p
Thanks! This has been a pretty good thread.
I think what Flipside said is really important - one of the big problems with tackling rape as a social issue is that people aren't convinced it's actually all that bad. I guess that's part of why I'm uncomfortable with using the term casually, even though I've done it before and probably will again.
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Here is my explanation as to why Rape is a perfectly useful description for getting your ass kicked in a game.
Rape in a videogame is when:
You get your ass handed to you so badly that you feel HUMILIATED AND VIOLATED ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
Just like real rape.
I don't think losing a video game is anything 'just like real rape'. It's not something which is a source of enormous shame for both men and women, or something with thousands of years of history, or something that we learn from a young age is a good reason for suicide or self-immolation.
Don't get me wrong, I've used the term too, but I think it's important to think about it and what you're actually saying: 'I'm so unconcerned about rape that it's about as important to me as losing a video game.' That's not a privilege women have.
having to play league of legends is pretty bad though i'll give you that
Except that's not what you are saiyng. That what you infer someone is saying.
And what someone else infers is none of my buisness.
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Here is my explanation as to why Rape is a perfectly useful description for getting your ass kicked in a game.
Rape in a videogame is when:
You get your ass handed to you so badly that you feel HUMILIATED AND VIOLATED ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
Just like real rape.
I don't think losing a video game is anything 'just like real rape'. It's not something which is a source of enormous shame for both men and women, or something with thousands of years of history, or something that we learn from a young age is a good reason for suicide or self-immolation.
Don't get me wrong, I've used the term too, but I think it's important to think about it and what you're actually saying: 'I'm so unconcerned about rape that it's about as important to me as losing a video game.' That's not a privilege women have.
having to play league of legends is pretty bad though i'll give you that
Moreover, as I said above:
Your usage may also be denotatively correct (if exaggerated, as in the case illustrated by Quanto). It really doesn't upset me that you feel the need to use the word 'rape' in that context, but it does make me form my own judgements about the type of person you are based on the way you communicate. This is more and more important as people put more about themselves on the Internet - other people are not just attuned to the meaning you convey, but also the way in which you convey it.
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Aside from the Trashman posts this has been a pretty good thread.
Aside from your existance, this has been a pretty good life.
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And what someone else infers is none of my buisness.
And if you're perfectly fine with everyone around you who listens to both the meaning you convey and the way you convey it thinking that you're an unreasonable, insensitive asshole, then holding that opinion is just fine. Just don't think using language in a way that makes people arrive at that impression is going to make you appear more mature or win you any friends. Quite the opposite.
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inb4 I am not here to make friends / I don't care what others think of me / beep beep boop boop
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Moreover, as I said above:
Your usage may also be denotatively correct (if exaggerated, as in the case illustrated by Quanto). It really doesn't upset me that you feel the need to use the word 'rape' in that context, but it does make me form my own judgements about the type of person you are based on the way you communicate. This is more and more important as people put more about themselves on the Internet - other people are not just attuned to the meaning you convey, but also the way in which you convey it.
This is also a super cool point, and one I wouldn't have thought of. I'll go ahead and say that it is hypothetically possible, in an ideal world, to use 'rape' in the context of a video game and be cool about it - say, in a world where rape culture was less of a problem.
And, again, I've used 'rape' in the context of games before.
But you should consider what that use signals about you. People may assume that casual use of 'rape' is associated with other, far more problematic behaviors -- misogyny, a lack of empathy for or exposure to women, a lack of consideration for the different challenges women face in their day to day lives.
And those challenges do exist. Women have to deal with a lot of creepy stuff in their day-to-day lives when men don't. Maybe it's as simple as that connection - using 'rape' casually signals you don't care much about women, and even if that isn't actually true for you, it's an assumption others will make because it's true for most people who use 'rape' that way.
e: men have a lot of unique problems too, don't get me wrong
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I had a friend recently who came to play in our BSG board game group. She had a fantastic time and everyone enjoyed her - she was a talented player and very friendly. Afterwards, she said to me: 'that was fun, but really, did they need to use 'rape' so often? Every time it came out I remembered I was the only woman at the table.' If she hadn't confided in me, no one would have known; and if she were a rape survivor, or the friend of one, we would've been triggering those memories every time it happened.
In other words, she is reminded she is a woman by the word rape? Soo...what is the problem with being a woman? Your friend almost sounds like she's ashamed she is one.
Unless she was raped, I'd say the problem is with her, not the word.
What the actual ****.
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So, are there any hyperboles involving victimization we can use in a... let's call it "mature"... conversation?
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So how is "my team got murdered" any better?
And I do wonder why a word having multieel meanings suddenly marginalizes the victim?
Except that's not what you are saiyng. That what you infer someone is saying.
And what someone else infers is none of my buisness.
trashman how can you not fit the idea that this is not a suffering contest into your head? you don't need to be the sole survivor in a rabid baby-eating kitten-killing cannibal attack to have your feelings hurt. it takes remarkably little effort to avoid using words pejoratively, which can go a long way towards making people feel welcome. if you don't feel that you should ever consider other people's feelings before you speak then you are going to have a hard time justifying your presence in any kind of social setting.
it's one thing to say things like "lul that gay blue team raped me last match" when you're alone with your buds that you've known for years and you understand them pretty well, but something entirely different when you're posting on-line in a community that survives only because of public contribution and where your posts are public and permenant.
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(http://www.milanstolicny.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/img_2157.JPG)
I'll win eventually!
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Alright.
I am a terrible human being. I just don't give a ****. I could care less about about the emotions and sensitivities of others. If people are gonna get butthurt and anal agonized about the words others choose to use on the internet, its no skin off my back. You see, I spend every public moment (time spent at work, in the grocery store, at the movies, etc.) censoring myself to make sure I don't create a real furball for myself. Being politically correct all the time is a huge pain in the ass. The internet is the only place I can actually let out my inner dark side, and I do so.
Why?
Its a great stress release, and you know what, in a world where everyone is worried that what they say is going to hurt them later, the internet is one of the few safe havens (social networking sites don't count).
Message Boards and Anonymous posting systems are great in that regard, and it really irks me when some asshole decides he needs to spread the social rules of public life to these sanctuaries.
I'm sorry sir, but I must oppose your stance (and that of your like-minded compatriots) and I will do so til the day I die.
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Message Boards and Anonymous posting systems are great in that regard, and it really irks me when some asshole decides he needs to spread the social rules of public life to these sanctuaries.
Right, because it's impossible for there to be rape survivors on the internet, let alone women.
The social rules of public life exist because there are a some pretty goddamn terrible things you can do to people with words.
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So, are there any hyperboles involving victimization we can use in a... let's call it "mature"... conversation?
Hyperbole is a feature of casual speech, and no one is going to judge someone for getting hyped up about a particular issue if its in context. Let me detour back to something TrashMan raised and I missed a moment ago:
So how is "my team got murdered" any better?
1. It's denotatively correct (depending on the game).
2. It carries no additional connotative or politicized meaning.
3. It does not subvert the original meaning of the term or minimize it.
4. There is no culture of acceptability around murder - it's one of the universally condemned features of human morality (one of the reasons that justified homicide is not called justified murder, in point of fact).
5. Unlike 'rape,' 'that's so gay,' 'that's retarded,' etc, murder carries no baggage regarding gender, orientation, ability, or race. It's a universal affliction.
It's my opinion, but if one must use a hyperbole around victimization, it is preferable to use those that reference either your personal experience or the human experience as a whole, rather than one which has been subverted to marginalize a particular identifiable group of people. That's not being PC, it's just common respect and courtesy for people who may have experienced or are acutely aware of the victimization that you're minimizing through your speech.
Isn't it interesting that people using victimization hyperbole tend to use those that target groups they do not belong to or care little about? There's a reason for that.
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Alright.
I am a terrible human being. I just don't give a ****. I could care less about about the emotions and sensitivities of others. If people are gonna get butthurt and anal agonized about the words others choose to use on the internet, its no skin off my back. You see, I spend every public moment (time spent at work, in the grocery store, at the movies, etc.) censoring myself to make sure I don't create a real furball for myself. Being politically correct all the time is a huge pain in the ass. The internet is the only place I can actually let out my inner dark side, and I do so.
Why?
Its a great stress release, and you know what, in a world where everyone is worried that what they say is going to hurt them later, the internet is one of the few safe havens (social networking sites don't count).
Message Boards and Anonymous posting systems are great in that regard, and it really irks me when some asshole decides he needs to spread the social rules of public life to these sanctuaries.
I'm sorry sir, but I must oppose your stance (and that of your like-minded compatriots) and I will do so til the day I die.
You're right, the Internet is a great safe haven. But should it only be a safe haven for you? What about people who are made to feel unsafe by casual rapechat? If you don't want to care about the emotions or sensitivities of others, why should we care about your desire to vent?
I don't think you're an asshole and I'm sorry you think I'm one. I really enjoyed the time I spent with your project and I always wanted to do more.
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This thread is silly. A heated discussion about words.
Words change meanings all the time, get used to that. For example, a word that once meant "female genitalia" in Polish, now means something like "of poor quality". There's no point in opposing those changes. "Rape" is a short word that's easy to type, so people use it, because it's stronger than "defeated" or "beaten" (which itself was a milder example of this process). They don't actually mean a sexual assault in this case. At some point, we'll most likely get a new term for sexual assault, and "rape" will mean something else by that point (I'd bet on "overwhelmed", since the current word is clumsy). Today's video games do speed up this process, because they're violent, and encourage such drastic comparisons, but it also happens naturally, without any help. This is language development at work, and it's pointless to oppose it. In short, judge people not by words they use, but by the meaning behind them.
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-snip-
What's that quote that's always misattributed to Voltaire - "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." While I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly, it needs an amendment - "I also reserve the right to form an opinion about you while defending that right."
You're entitled to say whatever you want, to whomever you want, wherever you want - but don't expect people to respect you for it, encourage you to do it, or not judge you based on it. I totally understand where you're coming from - I just don't happen to respect that sentiment, and how a person chooses to say something unfortunately may or may not speak volumes about that person. The trouble is, an observer has no way of knowing and will typically incorporate the meaning and method of what one says into what they believe about one, particularly in the absence of body language. In that sense, a person can be judged even more harshly based on what they say on the Internet than if they said the same thing in person.
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In short, judge people not by words they use, but by the meaning behind them.
The point that I've been making throughout is that it is impossible to separate the two. Failing to acknowledge that reality is a failure to communicate meaning.
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It's indeed impossible to separate the two, but it should be acknowledged that sometimes words may have two meanings, and that words change meanings over time. This happens much faster than it used to, due to internet, but the basic mechanic is the same. IMO, "rape" may be used in this new meaning, since it's common enough not to cause misunderstandings. That's how other people speak, and language is one place where this is a valid justification. If everybody spoke differently, we wouldn't be able to communicate at all.
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It's indeed impossible to separate the two, but it should be acknowledged that sometimes words may have two meanings, and that words change meanings over time. This happens much faster than it used to, due to internet, but the basic mechanic is the same. IMO, "rape" may be used in this new meaning, since it's common enough not to cause misunderstandings. That's how other people speak, and language is one place where this is a valid justification. If everybody spoke differently, we wouldn't be able to communicate at all.
I think this is an attitude you could only take if women have been given no voice in your decision.
The behavior of a bunch of male teenagers playing games on the internet does not a linguistic shift make. 'Slut' is not a compliment yet, 'nigger' is not a term of endearment, and '*****' is not a genderless word. The mind does not operate by simple logical rules; associations and heuristic connections are the norm. 'Rape' is tied to women - we can measure this in the lab.
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You're right, the Internet is a great safe haven. But should it only be a safe haven for you? What about people who are made to feel unsafe by casual rapechat? If you don't want to care about the emotions or sensitivities of others, why should we care about your desire to vent?
I don't think you're an asshole and I'm sorry you think I'm one. I really enjoyed the time I spent with your project and I always wanted to do more.
the internet isn't one homogeneous place. places like hlp enforce rules that make you respect your peers. places like 4chan give you more latitude with what you say, but there you need to understand that people might not be so nice. personally I'd say both places are valuable in their own way. if you're not comfortable with places where people can say what they feel then you're supposed to avoid 4chan, not try and change what it fundamentally is supposed to be.
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3. It does not subvert the original meaning of the term or minimize it.
I agree with your other points, but I take issue with this one. Of course it reduces the impact of the original meaning. Hyperbole, used often enough, always does.
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It's indeed impossible to separate the two, but it should be acknowledged that sometimes words may have two meanings, and that words change meanings over time. This happens much faster than it used to, due to internet, but the basic mechanic is the same. IMO, "rape" may be used in this new meaning, since it's common enough not to cause misunderstandings. That's how other people speak, and language is one place where this is a valid justification. If everybody spoke differently, we wouldn't be able to communicate at all.
Please read the posts on pages 2 and 3 regarding the subversion of language to convey politicized meaning, and we can take this up again. Then skip below the break.
---BREAK---
Just because a usage has become common doesn't mean it should be considered acceptable. While you're thinking on this, feel free to comment on the following common, subverted, terms or phrases:
"That's so gay."
"That's Jewish."
"That's retarded."
You can hear these things in a high school or college hallway virtually daily. Does that make the usage acceptable? What meaning is being conveyed when someone replaces the word "stupid" with a word that describes a particular identifiable group of people? What does conveying the meaning "stupid" in this way cause one to think about the person making the statement?
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3. It does not subvert the original meaning of the term or minimize it.
I agree with your other points, but I take issue with this one. Of course it reduces the impact of the original meaning. Hyperbole, used often enough, always does.
Fair point. Perhaps I should have said "belittles" rather than "minimize."
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You're right, the Internet is a great safe haven. But should it only be a safe haven for you? What about people who are made to feel unsafe by casual rapechat? If you don't want to care about the emotions or sensitivities of others, why should we care about your desire to vent?
I don't think you're an asshole and I'm sorry you think I'm one. I really enjoyed the time I spent with your project and I always wanted to do more.
Oh I'll get over it in a few hours, hopefully you will too.
I'm not so much opposed to the concept of people needing to be more sensitive, but I also live by the philosophy of "Live and Let Live". I see stuff I disagree with all the time, but I don't bother people about it, or even contemplate doing anything to prevent it in the future. I start to take issue with things when others refuse to let others live as they do. Now I know this whole tangent can lead to a slippery slope, but in general, if one individual's lifestyle does not adversely and physically affect the lifestyle of another, then leave be.
You may ask "Well, what if one lifestyle leads to the EVENTUAL disruption of another?" I would say that such predictions can be made, and some may prove correct, but at the same time, I am willing to live with the risk. I have work in half an hour so you guys will have free reign to pick it apart as you will.
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at the same time, I am willing to live with the risk.
I would be willing to bet money that this is because none or very few of these risks will ever include you (and, very probably, most people) to the same extent they do, you know, the people who are actually in a position for this risk to hurt them. Or have already had it hurt them.
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at the same time, I am willing to live with the risk.
I would be willing to bet money that this is because none or very few of these risks will ever include you (and, very probably, most people) to the same extent they do, you know, the people who are actually in a position for this risk to hurt them. Or have already had it hurt them.
That was the flipside of my argument. The risk is there. Who knows, I could get hit by a drunk driver tomorrow. But I won't let it bother me. I certainly won't let talk about drunk driving bother me.
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There is an interesting exercise we did in one of my college classes. Essentially the instructor asked the men what they do when they go to their car in a college parking lot at night. The most common response was "I walk to my car and get into it." The instructor then asked the women the same question. Nearly everyone of them described a set of steps as detailed as a Tactical Police Unit making a raid in the worst part of town imaginable. Note this level of caution was necessary to them at a very nice college in a pretty well to do town, let alone someplace less secure. So no, in all reality this is a very clear and realistic threat that most women take very seriously. Its easy to dismiss as out of hand when its not something you need to worry about routinely in everyday situations.
Just because you are able take something for granted doesn't mean everyone else has the luxury of being so cavalier.
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There is an interesting exercise we did in one of my college classes. Essentially the instructor asked the men what they do when they go to their car in a college parking lot at night. The most common response was "I walk to my car and get into it." The instructor then asked the women the same question. Nearly everyone of them described a set of steps as detailed as a Tactical Police Unit making a raid in the worst part of town imaginable. Note this level of caution was necessary to them at a very nice college in a pretty well to do town, let alone someplace less secure. So no, in all reality this is a very clear and realistic threat that most women take very seriously. Its easy to dismiss as out of hand when its not something you need to worry about routinely in everyday situations.
Just because you are able take something for granted doesn't mean everyone else has the luxury of being so cavalier.
There's a creepy-looking bald dude who stands outside the house next to my apartment. He's the staring sort. I can just walk past him, but he's big enough - and possibly dangerous enough - that women in the block send a tough friend out the door first to see where he's standing and signal a safe route around.
This is just day-to-day procedure for walking out the front door. Necessary to go buy groceries or get a coffee or whatever. And just being with someone who feels this is necessary is enough to get me keyed up and anxious.
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There is a point I wanted to make in this thread. Trashman said something about that rape could not be worse then murder.
The thing is, if I got raped, I'd probably have problems with that later on.
If I get murdered, I won't. Because I am dead. I won't even have to worry about anything at all.
Therefore, getting murdered is actually the best thing that can happen to you.
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It's indeed impossible to separate the two, but it should be acknowledged that sometimes words may have two meanings, and that words change meanings over time. This happens much faster than it used to, due to internet, but the basic mechanic is the same. IMO, "rape" may be used in this new meaning, since it's common enough not to cause misunderstandings. That's how other people speak, and language is one place where this is a valid justification. If everybody spoke differently, we wouldn't be able to communicate at all.
I think this is an attitude you could only take if women have been given no voice in your decision.
The behavior of a bunch of male teenagers playing games on the internet does not a linguistic shift make. 'Slut' is not a compliment yet, 'nigger' is not a term of endearment, and '*****' is not a genderless word. The mind does not operate by simple logical rules; associations and heuristic connections are the norm. 'Rape' is tied to women - we can measure this in the lab.
The world does not operate by logical rules either. No one can dictate in which way the vocabulary and word usagage goes. It just does. Who knows, one day nigger may be a pretty cool word to use again. Connotations to words are given by circumstances. Words in themsevels have no meaning other than what we give them; no emotional attachment other than we put into it.
After all, nigger comes from negro, which is a discriptive term.
In it's essence it's not different than saying "black man" or "white man" (neither of whihc I consider the slightest insulting.)
It's who the word was used by (slave owners and racists) that caused it's negative connotations, but those can only go away if we let them.
And if people voted on usage of words, you'd have wars sprouting up. Different groups with different interests.
I don't see usage of the word rape (as mentioned in this topic) as "lack of respect for your peers". I see it as just another word in the vocabulary. And it is.
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trashman how can you not fit the idea that this is not a suffering contest into your head? you don't need to be the sole survivor in a rabid baby-eating kitten-killing cannibal attack to have your feelings hurt. it takes remarkably little effort to avoid using words pejoratively, which can go a long way towards making people feel welcome. if you don't feel that you should ever consider other people's feelings before you speak then you are going to have a hard time justifying your presence in any kind of social setting.
What suffering? I have no idea what you're talkign about.
Also, I do consider other peoples feelings...up to point. Polite and cortious? Easily done. But I draw the line at walking on eggshells around over-sensitive people.
The sooner people learn to deal wiht such small dissapoinments, the better.
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So, are there any hyperboles involving victimization we can use in a... let's call it "mature"... conversation?
Hyperbole is a feature of casual speech, and no one is going to judge someone for getting hyped up about a particular issue if its in context. Let me detour back to something TrashMan raised and I missed a moment ago:
So how is "my team got murdered" any better?
1. It's denotatively correct (depending on the game).
2. It carries no additional connotative or politicized meaning.
3. It does not subvert the original meaning of the term or minimize it.
4. There is no culture of acceptability around murder - it's one of the universally condemned features of human morality (one of the reasons that justified homicide is not called justified murder, in point of fact).
5. Unlike 'rape,' 'that's so gay,' 'that's retarded,' etc, murder carries no baggage regarding gender, orientation, ability, or race. It's a universal affliction.
1. So is rape. Comparions and meaning make sense.
2. Sez you.
3. Neither does rape.
4. And rape is acceptalbe? Since when?
5. So is rape. It's not exclusive for women, yet women exclusively identify with it...And that's really not my problem.
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There is a point I wanted to make in this thread. Trashman said something about that rape could not be worse then murder.
The thing is, if I got raped, I'd probably have problems with that later on.
If I get murdered, I won't. Because I am dead. I won't even have to worry about anything at all.
Therefore, getting murdered is actually the best thing that can happen to you.
What about your faimily?
Or what if you go to hell? You just got cheated out of X more years of life!
Or..what about torture? Since it can include inserting object in places you dont' want them to be? and it can last for days, weeks? It can break you 100 tiems worse than any rape ever could.
Does that mean we shoudl never use phrases like "When's the next patch? This is pure torture!" ..because.. you know..lot's of soldiers in the world. I bet some survied torture and use internet.
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I don't see usage of the word rape (as mentioned in this topic) as "lack of respect for your peers". I see it as just another word in the vocabulary. And it is.
sensitivity and respect is never about how the speaker sees the words. it's about how the listeners see the words.
What suffering? I have no idea what you're talkign about.
Also, I do consider other peoples feelings...up to point. Polite and cortious? Easily done. But I draw the line at walking on eggshells around over-sensitive people.
The sooner people learn to deal wiht such small dissapoinments, the better.
on frequent occasions you drew parallels between rape and murder. I honestly have no idea why you were doing that, so I pointed out that it doesn't matter how much people are hurt - they have a right to feel hurt.
sensitivity is an ill-defined term. I agree with you, to hell with over sensitive people, but quite frankly I don't think either of us are qualified to tell when someone is being over-sensitive. in face of that doubt, personally I'd rather humor the person and get them out of my hair unless I'm feeling exceptionally malevolent.
1. So is rape. Comparions and meaning make sense.
2. Sez you.
3. Neither does rape.
4. And rape is acceptalbe? Since when?
5. So is rape. It's not exclusive for women, yet women exclusively identify with it...And that's really not my problem.
1) why the hell are you playing games where you rape people what on earth is wrong with you
2) i'm inclined to trust mp-ryan
3) yes it does, again, unless you're literally raping someone
4) there's lots of gray area around what rape defined as. too lazy to get into it now.
5) no, like battuta mentioned, people typically associate rape with women. apparently he knows of lab studies that have shown this. ask him for more details
will post more later
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People other than women definitely get raped, and it's equally morally repugnant.
But, uh, I think the best thing to do here is just...leave TrashMan be. I'm not sure posting more later (in dialogue with that quad post) is a good idea. This has been a great discussion as long as that material stays compartmentalized, and the best way to do that is just to disregard.
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1. It's denotatively correct (depending on the game).
2. It carries no additional connotative or politicized meaning.
3. It does not subvert the original meaning of the term or minimize it.
4. There is no culture of acceptability around murder - it's one of the universally condemned features of human morality (one of the reasons that justified homicide is not called justified murder, in point of fact).
5. Unlike 'rape,' 'that's so gay,' 'that's retarded,' etc, murder carries no baggage regarding gender, orientation, ability, or race. It's a universal affliction.
1. So is rape. Comparions and meaning make sense.
2. Sez you.
3. Neither does rape.
4. And rape is acceptalbe? Since when?
5. So is rape. It's not exclusive for women, yet women exclusively identify with it...And that's really not my problem.
The comparison and meaning does not typically make sense - the majority of the time it's used in this context is as a synonym for "defeated" or "victimized." The word rape holds neither of those denotative meanings. "Murdered" does not carry additional connotative meaning in the phrasing you used beyond that which it would carry when I say "John Kennedy was murdered." Meaning is the same.
As for subversion of the term, using rape in the context under discussion very much does subvert or belittle it's meaning. It compares a loss at an entertainment activity to a crime which disproportionately affects one part of the populace and is based on power dynamics. Here's food for though - isn't it interesting that people are using a word that describes a crime of power imbalance in a manner that reduces the power of the word itself?
As Batts pointed out, there are a large number of people who are unconcerned with or condone rape. This ranges from college campuses to military armies. Rape is a power weapon, and it is absolutely considered acceptable by some people. Rape is not a universal crime like murder - rape is a crime of power dynamics, perpetrated in order to have power over and subjugate another person. It is not exclusively women who are affected by the term, though they are definitely disproportionately represented. A lot of that has to do with inherent power imbalances between males and females, and the history of rape - the "she asked for it" phenomenon that still exists in a lot of countries today. The fact that you consider this not to be your problem just goes to show how little you really understand the issue and how immature about it you're being.
Having several good friends who have been seriously sexually-assaulted, I find your lack of compassion or willingness to consider any viewpoint other than your own selfish desire to say whatever you please with no regard for other people contemptuous. You have the right to say whatever you please as far as I'm concerned, but it says more about your own character than anything else. This, if anything, is what I would remind our younger forumites about - remember when you speak that you really don't know who your audience is.
EDIT: Sorry Batts =)
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The comparison and meaning does not typically make sense - the majority of the time it's used in this context is as a synonym for "defeated" or "victimized." The word rape holds neither of those denotative meanings. "Murdered" does not carry additional connotative meaning in the phrasing you used beyond that which it would carry when I say "John Kennedy was murdered." Meaning is the same.
As for subversion of the term, using rape in the context under discussion very much does subvert or belittle it's meaning. It compares a loss at an entertainment activity to a crime which disproportionately affects one part of the populace and is based on power dynamics. Here's food for though - isn't it interesting that people are using a word that describes a crime of power imbalance in a manner that reduces the power of the word itself?
As Batts pointed out, there are a large number of people who are unconcerned with or condone rape. This ranges from college campuses to military armies. Rape is a power weapon, and it is absolutely considered acceptable by some people. Rape is not a universal crime like murder - rape is a crime of power dynamics, perpetrated in order to have power over and subjugate another person. It is not exclusively women who are affected by the term, though they are definitely disproportionately represented. A lot of that has to do with inherent power imbalances between males and females, and the history of rape - the "she asked for it" phenomenon that still exists in a lot of countries today. The fact that you consider this not to be your problem just goes to show how little you really understand the issue and how immature about it you're being.
Having several good friends who have been seriously sexually-assaulted, I find your lack of compassion or willingness to consider any viewpoint other than your own selfish desire to say whatever you please with no regard for other people contemptuous. You have the right to say whatever you please as far as I'm concerned, but it says more about your own character than anything else. This, if anything, is what I would remind our younger forumites about - remember when you speak that you really don't know who your audience is.
EDIT: Sorry Batts =)
Oof, I know cheerleading is really annoying and generally frowned upon, but I just want to frame that post.
A lot of the problems with trivializing rape lie in the fact that there is no universal condemnation of the act. Rape is used as punishment (particularly for gay women) or as recreation. Women are considered to 'deserve' rape if they dress provocatively, get drunk, or flirt. Some people believe that a married woman cannot be raped by her husband. On American college campuses, fraternities pass around tips on how to date rape women, since it's not really rape if they're stoned or smashed and can't say no, right?
And women who survive rape have to live with the belief that it actually is their fault, that they've been damaged or sullied by the act, and that the best course of action they can take is to harm or kill themselves. It doesn't matter how strong or confident they are - they receive these messages from society and from history.
Men, too, have to deal with feelings of shame and compromised manhood, and this is something that absolutely needs to be recognized.
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man, trashman is really getting raped in this debate.
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on that note. At uni now, rape and consent and being drunk keeps being brought up by the administration. We had a lecture on it at the start of the year. One of the themes we are repeatedly told is that the victim is not at fault (I agree with that). However do females have a hand in/responsibility for not placing themselves in positions of vulnerability;i.e. do not get wasted at a party with people you don't know well? In a perfect world, people would not take advantage of that vulnerability, but life does not work like that. So they should not have to, but practically it is a valid idea? I feel like this is a murky area, where both sides can be responsible, but then it falls under the "she was asking for it", or "she dressed slutty" blah blah it's the victim's fault mentality, which isn't ok. So is a situation is clearly different than the afore mentioned girl walking to her car in the dark, where if someone was to take advantage of that, then the advantage taker is clearly at fault there. Question is how is the line drawn in such a situation?
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sensitivity and respect is never about how the speaker sees the words. it's about how the listeners see the words.
And I'm supposed to care about every possible listener and every possible gripe they might have?
And I'd say how I see the word is just as important. There's two poeple in a conversation and neither is superior to another.
The comparison and meaning does not typically make sense - the majority of the time it's used in this context is as a synonym for "defeated" or "victimized." The word rape holds neither of those denotative meanings. "Murdered" does not carry additional connotative meaning in the phrasing you used beyond that which it would carry when I say "John Kennedy was murdered." Meaning is the same.
Maybe it didn't, but it seems like it does now.
Also, the word "rape" in the mentioned context indicated brutality. A sense of violation.
As for subversion of the term, using rape in the context under discussion very much does subvert or belittle it's meaning. It compares a loss at an entertainment activity to a crime which disproportionately affects one part of the populace and is based on power dynamics. Here's food for though - isn't it interesting that people are using a word that describes a crime of power imbalance in a manner that reduces the power of the word itself?
I don't see how it reduces the power of the word just because it can be used in more ways than one. The original meaning or usage isn't lost.
Unless you think that if every time the word is used it should produce pain and anguish, otherwise it somehow looses it's "power"?
How does rape become any less disgusting an act, just because someone uses the wrod in a manner you dont' like?
It's all a perception. An illusion.
The fact that you consider this not to be your problem just goes to show how little you really understand the issue and how immature about it you're being.
Because the act and crime, and usage of the word are the exact same problem? Yeah..nice strawmen. But I never said women getting raped isn't my problem. My objection was only on the usage of the word.
and if oyu think you cna handwave everything and take on the position of moral and intelectual superiority by labeling dissenters as immature...ncie try. I aint' impressed.
Having several good friends who have been seriously sexually-assaulted, I find your lack of compassion or willingness to consider any viewpoint other than your own selfish desire to say whatever you please with no regard for other people contemptuous. You have the right to say whatever you please as far as I'm concerned, but it says more about your own character than anything else. This, if anything, is what I would remind our younger forumites about - remember when you speak that you really don't know who your audience is.
I find your hihg-and-mighty zealot of righteounsess attitude contemtuous. Guess that makes us even.
I do not lack compassion or willingness to see other peopels viewpoint. I just draw a reasonable line as to how much I cater to them, and also when and where such words are spoken and said.
And this beign the internet (and HLP), I see no great need to unnecessarily censor myself.
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on that note. At uni now, rape and consent and being drunk keeps being brought up by the administration.
Wait...rape at your campus happens often? Dear lord...what kind of uni are you going to?
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I did not say it happened often. I said it was brought up by the administration. I assume most Uni's have a similar trend/program by the administration. I could not give figures on how often it happens. I go to Indiana University, If that sheds any light on anything at all (I do not think it will?).
edit:
I don't see how it reduces the power of the word just because it can be used in more ways than one. The original meaning or usage isn't lost.
Unless you think that if every time the word is used it should produce pain and anguish, otherwise it somehow looses it's "power"?
How does rape become any less disgusting an act, just because someone uses the wrod in a manner you dont' like?
It's all a perception. An illusion.
I would disagree with this. Before in this thread, the use of word "retarded" was mentioned. I, and I think many of my generation have come to use the term to mean "stupid" or "ridiculous". I very much think that this ignorant usage of the word belittles the actual meaning and what it was originally intended for. Though I cannot claim to be innocent of using this word incorectly
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Rape is common on college campuses, and most rapes are never reported (16% is the figure commonly cited for the number that are reported.) 25% of college-age women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14.
I don't know why you're surprised. The statistics for Beskargam's college are probably very similar to wherever in the world you live.
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'nigger' is not a term of endearment
it is if youre black.
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The reporting rate for all sexual assaults is about 2% of actual crimes committed (jurisdiction-dependent, I see Batts just cited 16% which may be true in his case). It is a common crime everywhere, not just at post-secondary institutions, though they tend to have a better awareness of it.
Regarding "victim blaming." The victim is never at fault, and in most circumstances sexual assaults are motivated by opportunity, ability, and power. Physical appearance plays a very minor role in most sexual assaults. It is every person's right to be able to go where they please in public wearing whatever they please and not feel threatened or harassed, or be criminally victimized. That said - I've mentioned before that I work in law enforcement. This is where I tend to be at loggerheads with most campus advocacy groups - everyone has a responsibility for their own safety. There is a difference between acknowledging your right to do something, and realizing that doing it may have consequences because other people are not respectful of that right. I would never blame a victim of rape for enticing it; but I do advocate to everyone I know, particularly females in the context of this discussion, to take measures to keep themselves safe. That means not getting drunk in an unfamiliar place without people you can trust to remain as a group. That means not going on a date with someone you just met without telling anyone where you're going, who with, and when you'll be back. That means setting clear boundaries in person interactions - it means expressing that you're not consenting. That means not accepting a drink that you didn't see poured at a frat party from some guy who just walked up to you. And it means being conscious of where you are, what you're doing, who you're with, what you're wearing, what signals you're sending (I mean overt, not implied), and where you should be.
This is the trouble that a lot of men in particular have when it comes to "victim blaming." What they mean is to express concern for safety, not imply that because someone didn't take those steps they deserved what happened to them.
As I used to scold a number of my female friends: You can have all the legal rights in the world, but if you don't take responsibility for your own safety then someone, somewhere, is going to think they can take them from you.
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Rape is common on college campuses, and most rapes are never reported (16% is the figure commonly cited for the number that are reported.) 25% of college-age women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14.
I don't know why you're surprised. The statistics for Beskargam's college are probably very similar to wherever in the world you live.
Can't say I heard of such incidents on my college.
Heard it happening overall (the city, and the country), but no where near the numbers you give. Different places, differnt cultures?
According to your stats, it's an epidemic and every second women has apprently been...<retracted>.
And you know what they say about statistics....
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Can't say I heard of such incidents on my college.
That's exactly the problem - now you're catching on.
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And I'd say how I see the word is just as important. There's two poeple in a conversation and neither is superior to another.
I'm not getting into the rest of your post because it's already been addressed ad nausem, but I do want to highlight this tidbit.
The listener in an exchange of information is always superior to the speaker. The speaker conveys meaning, while the listener attempts to interpret it. More information is always gleaned or inferred from listening rather than speaking. How the speaker perceives the conversation is absolutely irrelevant, as they are not the person interpreting the meaning of what is being said. The words a speaker chooses say a great deal about the speaker based on how the listener interprets those words.
By way of example, if I think I'm being brilliant in all my posts it doesn't really matter - it's what the people reading them think of both the meaning I convey and the means by which I convey it that is actually relevant.
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Regarding "victim blaming." The victim is never at fault, and in most circumstances sexual assaults are motivated by opportunity, ability, and power. Physical appearance plays a very minor role in most sexual assaults. It is every person's right to be able to go where they please in public wearing whatever they please and not feel threatened or harassed, or be criminally victimized. That said - I've mentioned before that I work in law enforcement. This is where I tend to be at loggerheads with most campus advocacy groups - everyone has a responsibility for their own safety. There is a difference between acknowledging your right to do something, and realizing that doing it may have consequences because other people are not respectful of that right. I would never blame a victim of rape for enticing it; but I do advocate to everyone I know, particularly females in the context of this discussion, to take measures to keep themselves safe. That means not getting drunk in an unfamiliar place without people you can trust to remain as a group. That means not going on a date with someone you just met without telling anyone where you're going, who with, and when you'll be back. That means setting clear boundaries in person interactions - it means expressing that you're not consenting. That means not accepting a drink that you didn't see poured at a frat party from some guy who just walked up to you. And it means being conscious of where you are, what you're doing, who you're with, what you're wearing, what signals you're sending (I mean overt, not implied), and where you should be.
This is the trouble that a lot of men in particular have when it comes to "victim blaming." What they mean is to express concern for safety, not imply that because someone didn't take those steps they deserved what happened to them.
As I used to scold a number of my female friends: You can have all the legal rights in the world, but if you don't take responsibility for your own safety then someone, somewhere, is going to think they can take them from you.
Thanks that answers my question perfectly. and you summarized the issue I have had with expressing that question. I Think my college does not hold individuals responsible they are drunk, but I disagree and think that individuals do have responsibility for keeping themselves out of dangerous situations essentialy
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'nigger' is not a term of endearment
it is if youre black.
Among pals, such "nicknames" are rather common.
Me and my bud sometiems treat eachother with such names.
"Hey asshole, where you've been? I've been waiting for you."
"Hey faggot. Got delayed. What's up?"
F'course, it's all in good fun.
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Thanks that answers my question perfectly. and you summarized the issue I have had with expressing that question. I Think my college does not hold individuals responsible they are drunk, but I disagree and think that individuals do have responsibility for keeping themselves out of dangerous situations essentialy
Careful though; just because I say that people should take responsibility for their own safety seriously does not mean I am implying that a person has been irresponsible if they have not done so and have been subsequently sexually assaulted. That's an important part of the understanding.
What we're talking about here is measures to prevent yourself from being victimized, which may or may not actually work in a given situation. It's important to keep that distinct from talking about actual cases where people have been victimized after the fact. The short versions is "Take your safety seriously to try to protect yourself, but an assault is never, ever, your fault."
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Can't say I heard of such incidents on my college.
That's exactly the problem - now you're catching on.
Absence of evidence proves what exaclty? That the numbers here and there are the same? Doubt it.
Not saying there isn't unreported rape, but I dobut it's even near the same percentage as wherever you got your stats from.
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Thanks that answers my question perfectly. and you summarized the issue I have had with expressing that question. I Think my college does not hold individuals responsible they are drunk, but I disagree and think that individuals do have responsibility for keeping themselves out of dangerous situations essentialy
Careful though; just because I say that people should take responsibility for their own safety seriously does not mean I am implying that a person has been irresponsible if they have not done so and have been subsequently sexually assaulted. That's an important part of the understanding.
What we're talking about here is measures to prevent yourself from being victimized, which may or may not actually work in a given situation. It's important to keep that distinct from talking about actual cases where people have been victimized after the fact. The short versions is "Take your safety seriously to try to protect yourself, but an assault is never, ever, your fault."
Sorry that is what i meant. I understand the distinction, I am just less eloquent about the phrasing and making the distinction clear.
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Can't say I heard of such incidents on my college.
That's exactly the problem - now you're catching on.
Absence of evidence proves what exaclty? That the numbers here and there are the same? Doubt it.
Not saying there isn't unreported rape, but I dobut it's even near the same percentage as wherever you got your stats from.
You're right - it's probably higher. (Of course, in the absence of evidence, we assume the null of no difference, and the US Department of Justice has quite reliable statistics.)
It's not surprising that you're unaware of the prevalence of sexual assault, as man without (it seems) much exposure to women -- but that doesn't mean it's not present.
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The listener in an exchange of information is always superior to the speaker. The speaker conveys meaning, while the listener attempts to interpret it. More information is always gleaned or inferred from listening rather than speaking. How the speaker perceives the conversation is absolutely irrelevant, as they are not the person interpreting the meaning of what is being said. The words a speaker chooses say a great deal about the speaker based on how the listener interprets those words.
By way of example, if I think I'm being brilliant in all my posts it doesn't really matter - it's what the people reading them think of both the meaning I convey and the means by which I convey it that is actually relevant.
I can only go so far with conveying a meaning concisely.
And while I am perfectly capable of conveying the basic meaning, the subtexts is not something I have much control over, as it depends too much on what the listener feels, thinks and percieves - and I'm not in the mind reading buisness.
If i were to say "Lucas raped my childhood memories with his new trilogy", the meaning is rather clear.
If someone want to interpret it as me beign deliberatly mean or whatever, I got no control over that and I don't really care, since they are projecting and extrapolating beyond the original meaning.
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You're right - it's probably higher. (Of course, in the absence of evidence, we assume the null of no difference, and the US Department of Justice has quite reliable statistics.)
Of course. God bless america. The greatest country in the world. Surely other countries MUST have more sexual deviants and predators! Becasue everyone must be as obsessed with sex as we are!
It's not surprising that you're unaware of the prevalence of sexual assault, as man without (it seems) much exposure to women -- but that doesn't mean it's not present.
I'm aware and you're missing my point.
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Can't say I heard of such incidents on my college.
That's exactly the problem - now you're catching on.
Absence of evidence proves what exaclty? That the numbers here and there are the same? Doubt it.
Not saying there isn't unreported rape, but I dobut it's even near the same percentage as wherever you got your stats from.
Check your national unreported crime studies (most sociology departments run them). Sexual assault is the most underreported criminal offense, in every country, and the statistics are striking similar in most developed nations. An extremely small minority of actual sexual assaults are ever reported, and most of the actual perpetrators never see the inside of a court house, nevermind a jail cell.
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No, the rate is probably higher simply because most assaults will never be reported, no matter where you go. It has nothing to do with what country you live in.
Most rapes aren't committed by 'sexual deviants' and 'predators' in the sense of creepy strangers on the street - they're perpetrated by friends and family members, in either the victim or the attacker's homes.
According to the DOJ about 5% of rape attackers will ever see any jail time.
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Well, people seem to be much more interested talking about this than campaign ideas on the dreams forum. I'm somewhat amazed that this is even a heated discussion.
It bugs me when people drop the word 'rape' needlessly in a casual situation such as a video game. I immediately make several judgments about that person right then and there when they do: they're insensitive, they're not inquisitive, and they live comfortable lives.
They're insensitive:
No one would casually drop the word rape if they themselves were a rape victim. Someone who does therefore has an inability to empathize with rape victims, or worse, does not see rape as a big deal.
They're not inquisitive:
People who drop the term rape casually to me don't seem to have thought about the true meaning of the word too deeply. Sure, they might understand the situation where someone forcibly elicits sexual conduct with another, but the lingering psychological effects of a victim being overpowered and forced to give themselves is quite damaging. I feel that if someone can't make a personal connection to the pain of rape, at least they can try to make an intellectual one.
They live comfortable lives:
This is more of a personal judgment, but I get the feeling that insensitive individuals who have not experienced trauma in their lives have an inability to understand how damaging trauma can be. It is much easier to make statements about how rape isn't a big deal etc. if they themselves have not felt the pain of broken trust or a violent act. I suppose it's not their fault they live comfortable lives, but that should come with a level of humility, therefore requiring either an inquisitive nature or a level of sensitivity.
So, when I am having fun with a group of friends and one of them just blurts out "Oh man rape!". I feel a level of embarrassment for that person, and then begin wondering why I am hanging out with this person. I don't like to think about it in terms of maturity or childishness, because those terms imply a lot of other things that distract from the issue. It's merely a set of traits required to use the word in its casual form.
Lastly, the "why is murder casual and generally accepted" comment is a fair point to make. I don't have an answer for this and am not satisfied by the answers given in the posts I have read. I get the feeling if someone close to me were murdered I would be much less likely to drop the subject casually in business or among friends. e.g. "Hey we killed that deal!" In reference to salesmen getting a contract signed. This use of homicide to draw an analogy does not bother me in the slightest. These videogames we play in developed countries, many of them involve killing and this is fun to us. Maybe that's sick but I'm hopelessly fascinated by it. Perhaps if I were living in a violent militia controlled third world country, my perception of killing/murder would be very different.
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I'm aware and you're missing my point.
No, you're not.
Lets take the figures from Battuta's post, that we have absolutely no reason to doubt, given that he's a consistent, well-intentioned and typically very well informed forumite, and use them. Sixteen percent of sexual assaults are reported. Sixteen percent. Doesn't sounds like it means much, does it?
What it means is that for every single rape or attempted rape that gets reported, there are five others that do not. Take whatever rape statistics you have in your country, or look at those for the United States, and then multiply that by five. That's much closer, and is even using the larger percentage from this discussion. MP-Ryan very helpfully brought up the figure of 2%, and rightly pointed out it very likely varies by region, but think about that for a bit. For every rape or sexual crime reported, there are nearly fifty that occur.
Rape isn't always the 'pinned down in a dark alley' you seem to be so damn convinced it is. Rape is much more often the 'slip something into a drink so she can't say no' at a random party, or a date that goes too far and one party can't stop the other.
So can it with the self-righteous goalpost moving horse**** and man up to realize that defending usage of the word rape in a casual sense helps every rapist in the world do it easier.
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im of the opinion that rapists are grossly under penalized. given the rate of unreported abuses, its not unreasonable that a rapist on trial has committed more rapes than for which they are accused. sentences should be much longer than they are. it is somewhat comforting that rapists end up being prime targets for prison rape.
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This thread (mostly) does me so proud o7
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This thread (mostly) does me so proud o7
I have to agree. It's one of the better discussions around here in recent months.
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No, the rate is probably higher simply because most assaults will never be reported, no matter where you go. It has nothing to do with what country you live in.
That doesn't make any sense.
You don't have any numbers yet keep insiting that the number of sex-crimes (and rape specificly) is higher in my country.
I think some miscommunication happened here.
I'm talkign about rape crimes in total. Reported and unreported.
So can it with the self-righteous goalpost moving horse**** and man up to realize that defending usage of the word rape in a casual sense helps every rapist in the world do it easier.
BS.
They're insensitive:
No one would casually drop the word rape if they themselves were a rape victim. Someone who does therefore has an inability to empathize with rape victims, or worse, does not see rape as a big deal.
More BS.
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that said, a thought.
If "misuse" (comparison to something that isn't as bad) of word rape is bad because it trivializes the word (and by proxy, the suffering of people), then wouldnt' that apply to ALL words?
I mean, how many people mis-use hte word natzi? How many peopel compared other peopel or faction to natzi's? Or called someone a grammar natzi? I know for a fact that this happened here a lot (by each and every one of you..at least once).
Doesn't comparing anyone to a natzi trivilize the evil of a natzi, and thus the attrocities they commited?
By that logic, we all - including you MP and Batt - are as guilty as I am.
On the other hand, isn't the absurdity of the comparison exactly the point? Saying "that movie is so bad I'd rather have a rusty, hot halberd showed up my ass" cerntaly doens't have any logical comparion. OF COURSE the move ain't that bad. But the absurdity serves to emphasize exactly how bad it is...and not to trivilaize torture (in this case). Or natzi's. Or rape.
So does the phrase convey the intended meaning? Yes. Can you say it another way? Probably.
meh.. I'm tired. I'm hitting hte bed and I doubt I'm gonna continue tomorrow. There's not much mroe to be said and I don't have much interest in it anyway (now that that JAIB download is finally finished).
One last point - WHY IS THIS IN THE GAME DISCUSSIO NADN NOT GENERAL DISC????
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Since Batts mentioned the DOJ numbers, here's some from Canada (about 5 years old now).
Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 2007 Report on Sexual Assault Highlights (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85f0033m/2008019/hl-fs-eng.htm)
About one in ten sexual assaults is reported to police, according to the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS) on Victimization. With only a small proportion of sexual offences formally documented through law enforcement, the prevalence of sexual assault in Canada has been difficult to quantify.
According to the 2004 GSS, there were about 512,000 incidents of sexual assault, representing a rate of 1,977 incidents per 100,000 population aged 15 and older. Given that most sexual assaults go unreported, police-reported sexual assault counts are notably lower, with about 24,200 sexual offences recorded by police in 2007.
Victimization data suggest that the rates of sexual assault remained stable in recent years. However, police-reported data reveal a steady decline in offences coming to the attention of law enforcement for more than a decade.
The majority of sexual offences in Canada are of a less severe nature. Victimization data indicate that most sexual assaults involved unwanted sexual touching (81%) rather than more severe sexual attacks (19%). Among the incidents that came to the attention of police in 2007, the large majority (86%) were level 1, the least serious form of sexual assault.
The 2004 GSS showed that sexual victimization rates were dramatically higher among those aged 15 to 24, compared to those 55 and over. Additionally, over half of the sexual assault victims reported to police in 2007 were children and youth under the age of 18.
When asked why they did not tell the police about the sexual assault, a majority of victims (58%) said that they did not report the incident because it was not important enough.
While few sexual assault victims filed formal reports with police, most (72%) confided in friends and many turned to family (41%) and other informal sources of support.
Similar to victims of other forms of violent crime, sexual assault victims commonly experienced anger, confusion and frustration as a result of their victimization.
Bold emphasis mine.
Now, what kind of message does it send to victims of sexual assault who already don't report it because they don't feel it's important enough when we trivialize their victimization by comparing it to a loss in a video game?
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WHY IS THIS IN THE GAME DISCUSSIO NADN NOT GENERAL DISC????
Because if it were, you wouldn't be able to reply to it?
....
Oh wait.
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natzi
Godwin'd.
Oh, and it's
Nazi
SpellingNazi'd.
For the record, I'm not actually responding to that post because of his Godwin silliness.
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I'm just going to add my little tidbit six pages later in this discussion
I don't see what's wrong with using the word 'rape' as a description for someone getting their ass destroyed in a videogame
It doesn't denote maturity or immaturity. It doesn't show insensitivity to the act of rape, nor does it trivialize it.
To me, 'rape' is just a word that has succumbed into the territory of slang meanings. Gay suffered a similar fate, and so have many other words
Welcome to the evolution of the English language
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I'm just going to add my little tidbit six pages later in this discussion
I don't see what's wrong with using the word 'rape' as a description for someone getting their ass destroyed in a videogame
It doesn't denote maturity or immaturity. It doesn't show insensitivity to the act of rape, nor does it trivialize it.
To me, 'rape' is just a word that has succumbed into the territory of slang meanings. Gay suffered a similar fate, and so have many other words
Welcome to the evolution of the English language
Allow me introduce you to page 4, and why the argument that "it's evolution of language" really doesn't cut it. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80668.msg1602717#msg1602717)
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I'm just going to add my little tidbit six pages later in this discussion
I don't see what's wrong with using the word 'rape' as a description for someone getting their ass destroyed in a videogame
It doesn't denote maturity or immaturity. It doesn't show insensitivity to the act of rape, nor does it trivialize it.
To me, 'rape' is just a word that has succumbed into the territory of slang meanings. Gay suffered a similar fate, and so have many other words
Welcome to the evolution of the English language
You have not read the thread. Do so now.
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They're insensitive:
No one would casually drop the word rape if they themselves were a rape victim. Someone who does therefore has an inability to empathize with rape victims, or worse, does not see rape as a big deal.
More BS.
:eek2: we got ourselves a wall and a tennis ball.
Let me put it another way then i'll stop: Why would you use a word such as rape with all its baggage and negative context and use it in a casual situation which has nothing to do with rape? You really need to draw an analogy about video game victories that badly? It's like inviting everyone to a party, everyone's laughing and having a good time and then all the sudden you suggest they all watch Schnidler's List. Why?! If you want to provoke an intelectual discussion about rape, sure, but you're not when you draw a casual video game analogy. It's like rape is the punchline of a joke. Oh HAHA that rape, good one you insensative prick. That's what goes through my head when someone uses the word rape casually.
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Slang is still evolution. It's just not acceptable evolution
And I couldn't possibly move my way through that many pages of Trashman
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I'm just going to add my little tidbit six pages later in this discussion
I don't see what's wrong with using the word 'rape' as a description for someone getting their ass destroyed in a videogame
It doesn't denote maturity or immaturity. It doesn't show insensitivity to the act of rape, nor does it trivialize it.
To me, 'rape' is just a word that has succumbed into the territory of slang meanings. Gay suffered a similar fate, and so have many other words
Welcome to the evolution of the English language
Hey, might want to read the entire thread!
Bigchunk I really like your posts on this topic.
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Slang is still evolution. It's just not acceptable evolution
And I couldn't possibly move my way through that many pages of Trashman
If you are unwilling to familiarize yourself with the discussion that came before, you should not try to enter it.
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Slang is still evolution. It's just not acceptable evolution
And I couldn't possibly move my way through that many pages of Trashman
If you are unwilling to familiarize yourself with the discussion that came before, you should not try to enter it.
...because all the statements you just made have been addressed, deathfun, probably twice over by now.
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WHY IS THIS IN THE GAME DISCUSSIO NADN NOT GENERAL DISC????
Because if it were, you wouldn't be able to reply to it?
....
Oh wait.
Not that I have much desire to do more than lurk in this thread, but bravo.
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BS.
More BS.
Perhaps unfair for me to reply to this now that this is in GenDisc, but I'll say it anyway:
If your ability to respond to an argument is limited to saying "BS" without any form of elaboration or supporting statements, then you probably should not post a response at all.
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I press reply and only to find myself on the seventh page...
Read thread, same post would've ensued
Only difference being is MP, you based an earlier argument on the assumption that because people use 'rape' in it's slang meaning, they're lessening it's severity in doing so. Simply because they use a slang meaning for it, doesn't necessarily denote that the word has lost it's official significance.
(Little segment for memory refresh "It's taking a word that has a horrific meaning and repurposing it to lessen the actual nature of the acts it denotatively describes, marginalizing a victimized population even further.")
I joke about suicide all the time, what does that make me?
Sidenote: Laughed at Nuke's little tidbits
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I press reply and only to find myself on the seventh page...
Read thread, same post would've ensued
Only difference being is MP, you based an earlier argument on the assumption that because people use 'rape' in it's slang meaning, they're lessening it's severity in doing so. Simply because they use a slang meaning for it, doesn't necessarily denote that the word has lost it's official significance.
(Little segment for memory refresh "It's taking a word that has a horrific meaning and repurposing it to lessen the actual nature of the acts it denotatively describes, marginalizing a victimized population even further.")
I joke about suicide all the time, what does that make me?
Sidenote: Laughed at Nuke's little tidbits
Hopefully now you at least have a better understanding of how people around you feel when you act that way.
Suicide is a tragic act, but it's not one with a large culture of permissivity...though it, too is definitely socially contagious, and if you joke about it all the time: are you okay? You've made remarks about feeling socially isolated and alone.
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Only difference being is MP, you based an earlier argument on the assumption that because people use 'rape' in it's slang meaning, they're lessening it's severity in doing so. Simply because they use a slang meaning for it, doesn't necessarily denote that the word has lost it's official significance.
Meaning comes from denotation and connotation. The denotation may not change, but you repeat something frequently enough in a different context and its connotation will. E.g. the contextual connotative meaning of "That's gay" is now widely known as "That's stupid."
Interesting that you mention humour. Humour may trivialize an issue, but it's also a disarmament technique to get people thinking about a contentious or difficult topic. Humour exists around all kinds of taboo subjects, and some of the best comics in the business knowingly use this. Nothing wrong with that; rather, it's actually a pretty effective way of getting around the social taboos of talking about sensitive topics.
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i cannot in good conscience commit suicide without an accompanying body count that is at least equivalent to or greater than the casualties of hiroshima. if i cannot carry out my grand mission of the nuclear destruction of the human race, i must at least inspire others to do so.
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i cannot in good conscience commit suicide without an accompanying body count that is at least equivalent to or greater than the casualties of hiroshima. if i cannot carry out my grand mission of the nuclear destruction of the human race, i must at least inspire others to do so.
Sounds like you, sir, need to start a cult.
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It's not nearly insane enough, needs some kind of lore involving comet-trailing ancient alien spaceships and kool aid.
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It's not nearly insane enough, needs some kind of lore involving comet-trailing ancient alien spaceships and kool aid.
well... you've seen nuke's pictures, havent you?
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and if you joke about it all the time: are you okay? You've made remarks about feeling socially isolated and alone.
I'm fine
Hopefully now you at least have a better understanding of how people around you feel when you act that way.
See, I already have this understanding. Difference being is I still have no issue with it's use. "We got raped" is just another slang meaning. I don't care much for it
However, someone saying "I want to rape his child" compels me to track his IP and murder him
The act as opposed to the hyperbole. This is where a line is drawn, and I'm going out on a limb saying people know this
Meaning comes from denotation and connotation. The denotation may not change, but you repeat something frequently enough in a different context and its connotation will. E.g. the contextual connotative meaning of "That's gay" is now widely known as "That's stupid."
This is where your argument fails. It may be widely known, but that doesn't mean people no longer know the original meaning of it. Afterall, everyone who I've done the whole "Of course I'm happy" to roll their eyes (what they said being "You're so gay")
Where you argument doesn't fail, is if someone is taught a word without having seen it's slang evolution. An example being, a toddler. If he's taught that gay means stupid all his life... gay then means stupid
If he's taught rape means heavy loss, he's then going to think only that
Thing is though, the idiot father knows both aren't true.
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'Rape' does not mean 'lose in a video game' for a lot of the people around you. It means 'something I'm scared of every day, and that I have a 25%-35% chance of experiencing, which will color the rest of my life.'
And that's what they think about every time you say it, no matter what you think you mean. Are you familiar with the phrase 'trigger warning'?
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rape is just one more little faucet in my mosaic of reasons why i hate humanity. as are the misuses of english vocabulary. to use the such a simple term, even metaphorically, seems to show a lack of mastery in finding the right word for the situation. some while ago i noticed the very act of going on battlenet resulted it me reverting to the maturity to that of a 13 year old. my use of the n word sky rocketed and i find myself falling into the norm of being as offensive as possible for no apparent reason. when somone lagged up the game i found while everyone was saying that people who lag were gay, instead of following the heard like the rest of the sheeple, i stated replacing my use of the term 'gay' with the term 'homosexual'. this actually offended people more! people who were already saying the same exact thing. same with rape, i replaced statements like 'you got raped!' with 'you just took it up the back side! no ky! AND YOU LIKED IT!!!' im pretty sure that offended somone, but i got a load of luls out of it too. just goes to show that a little insult creativity goes a long way.
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This thread is both entertaining AND educational. So far after reading it, my wisdom has gone up +30.
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'Rape' does not mean 'lose in a video game' for a lot of the people around you. It means 'something I'm scared of every day, and that I have a 25%-35% chance of experiencing, which will color the rest of my life.'
That is a very unfortunate statistic. :blah:
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'Rape' does not mean 'lose in a video game' for a lot of the people around you. It means 'something I'm scared of every day, and that I have a 25%-35% chance of experiencing, which will color the rest of my life.'
And that's what they think about every time you say it, no matter what you think you mean. Are you familiar with the phrase 'trigger warning'?
This is where I drop a few things here "Social Judgment" and "Knowing your audience"
Have gamers gone around saying this in public? I don't hear someone describing "we got raped" at basketball games, soccer games, or whatever have you. I have heard people use it in paintball games though, and it isn't met with scold, but rather agreement (men and women alike)
The people at the sports games, are also the same ones who go on CoD and say "We got raped".
Your argument is based on the assumption that we don't know the difference, and go around to not like-minded people describing us getting raped at the latest sports game
If gamers did that, your statistic showing would hold basis in this argument. However, we're talking about a community of gamers yelling at eachother through games, not our local NHL game
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It's futile to police the inappropriate use of words by means of authority. It's impossible to wade into all the shades of gray and render a black and white decision. People end up despising the admins more than the language.
Just police yourselves dammit. I know it's the internet and ostracism isn't the force it is in real life, but the only way this is going to work is if you create an exceedingly unfriendly environment to people who transgress the standard (and regardless of what people like Trashmen say, there is a reasonable standard of respect that can and should be expected, adjusted to each particular social context) and implicitly and explicitly promoting that standard, with administrative action reserved only for the most extreme cases on which there is mass agreement.
And don't use the words "offensive" or "insensitive" to justify action. People can be sensitive to or be offended by anything, regardless of its merit. Use words that imply a universal standard like respect. Gives the assholes less words to wriggle their way out of your grasp when you catch them. Call them morons if you have to. The focus has to be on their behavior, not "what we want in our community".
Now can we all get back to being friendly with each other? This isn't worth it.
burn trashman the witch!
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'Rape' does not mean 'lose in a video game' for a lot of the people around you. It means 'something I'm scared of every day, and that I have a 25%-35% chance of experiencing, which will color the rest of my life.'
And that's what they think about every time you say it, no matter what you think you mean. Are you familiar with the phrase 'trigger warning'?
This is where I drop a few things here "Social Judgment" and "Knowing your audience"
Have gamers gone around saying this in public? I don't hear someone describing "we got raped" at basketball games, soccer games, or whatever have you. I have heard people use it in paintball games though, and it isn't met with scold, but rather agreement (men and women alike)
The people at the sports games, are also the same ones who go on CoD and say "We got raped".
Your argument is based on the assumption that we don't know the difference, and go around to not like-minded people describing us getting raped at the latest sports game
How do you know who around you is a rape survivor, or the friend or loved one of a rape survivor? Is there a badge you can spot that I'm missing?
Looking solely at the problem of triggering - how are you sure you're not?
It's futile to police the inappropriate use of words by means of authority. It's impossible to wade into all the shades of gray and render a black and white decision. People end up despising the admins more than the language.
I don't think anyone's suggested any forum of forum police here. People have just said 'if you do this, you are probably an asshole' - which is exactly what you're suggesting.
Now can we all get back to being friendly with each other? This isn't worth it.
Really? I (and many others) think this has been a great thread and a great discussion. You can always improve it by heading to your forums ignore list and adding TrashMan to it, so you only have to view his posts when you want to.
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Just police yourselves dammit.
This is where my aforementioned "Social Judgment" comes in
I'm also not the one who used that word. It was the shrink I was told to go see after I did several not so great things in school :D
You know, along the lines of using rape, murder, in a public sense
How do you know who around you is a rape survivor, or the friend or loved one of a rape survivor? Is there a badge you can spot that I'm missing?
Looking solely at the problem of triggering - how are you sure you're not?
You can tell if it triggered something in someone's mind. Rape isn't exactly something you can mention without a victim becoming emotional about it, whether it be submission, or anger. No rape victim would come at you with open arms laughing about the experience if you just trivialized it in front of them
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A lot of the problems with trivializing rape lie in the fact that there is no universal condemnation of the act. Rape is used as punishment (particularly for gay women) or as recreation. Women are considered to 'deserve' rape if they dress provocatively, get drunk, or flirt. Some people believe that a married woman cannot be raped by her husband. On American college campuses, fraternities pass around tips on how to date rape women, since it's not really rape if they're stoned or smashed and can't say no, right?
I at least like to believe that the vast majority of 1st world countries condemn rape, just like you'd condemn any other kind of felony.
The fact that such 'rape cultures' exists on college campuses is very much disturbing though.
Women are considered to 'deserve' rape if they dress provocatively
While I certainly don't think that they deserve it, I do think there's a certain amount of 'she had it coming' in these cases. In the same way that if you walk on the streets dressed like a doctor, bystanders to an accident scene will very likely come to you to ask for help. Or if you walk into a cage filled with lions, with several pieces of juicy meat strapped to you.
Again, I'm not saying that dressing like a whore means that you *should* be raped. Just in the same way that leaving the door to you house unlocked shouldn't mean that burglars get a free card to strip you of all your possessions. It's all about increasing the risk to yourself. Some things are smart to do and some things are not.
They live comfortable lives:
This is more of a personal judgment, but I get the feeling that insensitive individuals who have not experienced trauma in their lives have an inability to understand how damaging trauma can be. It is much easier to make statements about how rape isn't a big deal etc. if they themselves have not felt the pain of broken trust or a violent act. I suppose it's not their fault they live comfortable lives, but that should come with a level of humility, therefore requiring either an inquisitive nature or a level of sensitivity.
I will admit to being guilty of this.
(also lol: Warning - while you were typing 10 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.
By the time of reading these posts, 3 more have been posted. Rape is such a popular subject!)
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I'm not talking about this forum per se. Just the general heavy handed tactics to stomp this stuff out that goes on everywhere.
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While I certainly don't think that they deserve it, I do think there's a certain amount of 'she had it coming' in these cases. In the same way that if you walk on the streets dressed like a doctor, bystanders to an accident scene will very likely come to you to ask for help. Or if you walk into a cage filled with lions, with several pieces of juicy meat strapped to you.
Again, I'm not saying that dressing like a whore means that you *should* be raped. Just in the same way that leaving the door to you house unlocked shouldn't mean that burglars get a free card to strip you of all your possessions. It's all about increasing the risk to yourself. Some things are smart to do and some things are not.
You can debate the intent of the women's choice of clothing, but it is irrelevant. Other people don't get to decide what a short skirt means to her.
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Women are considered to 'deserve' rape if they dress provocatively
While I certainly don't think that they deserve it, I do think there's a certain amount of 'she had it coming' in these cases. In the same way that if you walk on the streets dressed like a doctor, bystanders to an accident scene will very likely come to you to ask for help. Or if you walk into a cage filled with lions, with several pieces of juicy meat strapped to you.
Again, I'm not saying that dressing like a whore means that you *should* be raped. Just in the same way that leaving the door to you house unlocked shouldn't mean that burglars get a free card to strip you of all your possessions. It's all about increasing the risk to yourself. Some things are smart to do and some things are not.
I think the big problem here is that the common wisdom isn't actually true. If you look at the crime stats, there's actually fairly little correlation between 'dressing sexy' and getting raped. This is in no small part because rape is usually perpetrated by people the victim trusts - and so it wouldn't really matter how well prepared they were or how they dressed.
In this example, it's not the accident bystanders who are asking you for help, it's the man who made your doctor outfit -- and it's not the lions who eat you, it's your butcher.
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By the way Bat, I responded earlier to what you said in an edit to a previous post
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I believe that rape should carry a heavy and rather permanent sentence. Like say....a short drop and a quick stop.
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This thread is very eye-opening. Thank you Battuta and MP Ryan and everyone that further developed the thread. I've never said rape in a game, but I never thought much about it until now. It's something to think about since having a girlfriend. Yet even if I am not in a relationship, I'd still would have learned something.
EDIT: By far one of the best threads recently.
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As big a problem as any in our civilization is the obsession with punishment and neglect of prevention, mostly because it rarely if ever occurs to us that there are more effective ways to deter behavior than just handing out the worse possible sentence to every perpetrator.
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As big a problem as any in our civilization is the obsession with punishment and neglect of prevention, mostly because it rarely if ever occurs to us that there are more effective ways to deter behavior than just handing out the worse possible sentence to every perpetrator.
I believe that fear is a powerful driving force and deterant.
If people see severe and brutal punishments dished out for rape, they come to realise how despicable the act is once they realise that they can't argue that they wouldn't appeal for the same punishment if they, or someone they care for, where the victim.
Frat-boys would soon realise that getting to know a girl, is preferable to slipping one a roofie and than getting shot on live television after the trial.
Edit:
Also, I feel that there is little to do to prevent such an act. It's pretty much forced down our necks that "No" means no, and that "Rape is wrong" due to it being covered in sexual health at school, and by the media.
Isn't rape usually about exerting totall control, rather that sating lust? So surely a punishment that ensures that the perpetrator will never be able to control anything, and knowing that their life will end at the hands of another, would be the most fearsome punishment.
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Thank you for proving my point! How's that drug war going by the way?
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You can debate the intent of the women's choice of clothing, but it is irrelevant. Other people don't get to decide what a short skirt means to her.
I don't actually disagree with this statement, but it now strikes me that perhaps I should. It seems to be fundamentally at odds with MP-Ryan's previous post about the observer's rather than the actor's interpretation being paramount.
Convince me why it's different for visual presentation over verbal.
Then convince me why I can't put up swastikas everywhere and claim they're the Native American good luck symbol and nobody else's opinion matters.
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oh come on, we were doing good here
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oh come on, we were doing good here
Hey, to hell with you. I find the entire topic and its necessity kind of silly, but that's what you get when you haven't banned Trashman. There's definitely something doublethink about that particular statement, though.
(Hence why I couched it in a general phrase; I'm not advocating anything specific, goddammit.)
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Also, I feel that there is little to do to prevent such an act. It's pretty much forced down our necks that "No" means no, and that "Rape is wrong" due to it being covered in sexual health at school, and by the media.
Isn't rape usually about exerting totall control, rather that sating lust? So surely a punishment that ensures that the perpetrator will never be able to control anything, and knowing that their life will end at the hands of another, would be the most fearsome punishment.
Beliefs are what enable action. In this case, belief that all the girls want it, regardless of what they say.
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You can debate the intent of the women's choice of clothing, but it is irrelevant. Other people don't get to decide what a short skirt means to her.
I don't actually disagree with this statement, but it now strikes me that perhaps I should. It seems to be fundamentally at odds with MP-Ryan's previous post about the observer's rather than the actor's interpretation being paramount.
Convince me why it's different for visual presentation over verbal.
Then convince me why I can't put up swastikas everywhere and claim they're the Native American good luck symbol and nobody else's opinion matters.
It is irrelevant to the point of what she deserves, which is the right to not have sex with the first interested guy.
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I think the big problem here is that the common wisdom isn't actually true. If you look at the crime stats, there's actually fairly little correlation between 'dressing sexy' and getting raped. This is in no small part because rape is usually perpetrated by people the victim trusts - and so it wouldn't really matter how well prepared they were or how they dressed.
I'd go one further and say that this tangent is pointless as I have yet to see any sort of study showing a correlation between dress and sexual assault. Rapists almost universally say they pick their targets based on the following:
- Means (can I overpower the target)
- Opportunity (can I get away with it)
- Subject attitude (they "looked like a victim")
Interestingly, these criteria also correlate strongly for murderers, particularly cop-killers, showing a heavy link in power dynamics of sexual assault and murder.
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oh come on, we were doing good here
Hey, to hell with you. I find the entire topic and its necessity kind of silly, but that's what you get when you haven't banned Trashman. There's definitely something doublethink about that particular statement, though.
(Hence why I couched it in a general phrase; I'm not advocating anything specific, goddammit.)
I meant 'doing good' as in 'not having an endless argument about some semantic point and instead providing valuable advice to the young', not 'doing good' as in 'ngtm1r you are a nazi'
The philosophical question is interesting, I guess, but tangential to what I think the best parts of the thread have been about.
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It is irrelevant to the point of what she deserves, which is the right to not have sex with the first interested guy.
Okay. (But mind your wording!)
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I trusted that you were capable of remembering the post that immediately preceded mine and understanding what I was responding to. Obviously I was mistaken in doing so.
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Thank you for proving my point! How's that drug war going by the way?
Rather well, thank you very much. The newest ones I've developed are blowing the competion out of the water, and controlling robots installed with the brains of drug lords.
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Sorry for starting this (or perhaps not?) with my comment...
By the way, I thought the swastika was a sanskrit symbol, which is interesting, as Aryan refers to people of some Indian-Middle Eastern descent or something if I recall.
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Firespawn, I'm again going to trust that you actually understood what I was getting at before you responded with a joke. Hopefully I'm right this time.
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Also, I feel that there is little to do to prevent such an act. It's pretty much forced down our necks that "No" means no, and that "Rape is wrong" due to it being covered in sexual health at school, and by the media.
Isn't rape usually about exerting totall control, rather that sating lust? So surely a punishment that ensures that the perpetrator will never be able to control anything, and knowing that their life will end at the hands of another, would be the most fearsome punishment.
Beliefs are what enable action. In this case, belief that all the girls want it, regardless of what they say.
And after all, what can change the nature of a man? If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear - whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can. I’ve seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag's heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me. :p
Sorry about that, couldn't help myself.
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obscure reference is obscure
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If you don't get that one, you suck. No exceptions.
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I trusted that you were capable of remembering the post that immediately preceded mine and understanding what I was responding to. Obviously I was mistaken in doing so.
Assumption is what separates the merely annoying from the MP-Ryans of the world.
Besides, I'm honestly curious about the philosophical question, it was just a good excuse. Which is, I suppose, actually pretty appropriate to the topic.
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Are you talking about actor's vs observer's interpretation? I just go for the pragmatist approach.
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If you don't get that one, you suck. No exceptions.
enlighten me, then i will tell you who sucks :D
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Planescape: Torment motha
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not in my sphere!
you really shouldnt assume everyone has played every game that youve ever played, hince obscurity
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Firespawn, I'm again going to trust that you actually understood what I was getting at before you responded with a joke. Hopefully I'm right this time.
Your trust was well placed.
Yes understand how the war on drugs is going. Yes I understand that it's not, and most likely never will, reach an ultimate conclusion. But I think if nothing was done, it'd be a lot worse.
I'm not saying that my idea is the best one, or stop it completely, but after a few cases the numbers would drop dramatically and make alternatives disregarded today preferable.
But that is my opinion, fueled by bias and prejudice and the naive hope that every person convicted would be truly guilty. But I admit that I'm an idealist.
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Assumption is what separates the merely annoying from the MP-Ryans of the world.
Besides, I'm honestly curious about the philosophical question, it was just a good excuse. Which is, I suppose, actually pretty appropriate to the topic.
Just got something to add that's somewhat related. If a woman wants to go to a club, there's apparently a "dress code" that they are supposed to wear. Makeup, dressing, and the like. In this scenario, they're pressured into wearing clothes that they wouldn't otherwise wear anywhere else.
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Assumption is what separates the merely annoying from the MP-Ryans of the world.
I'm... not sure how to take that?
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Now can we all get back to being friendly with each other? This isn't worth it.
Isn't this the whole point of the thread? Getting along requires some basic courtesy.
Basic courtesy does not involve inconsiderate use of words like: Rape, Faggot, Gay, Jewish, et cetera.
Using a word like rape casually brands a person as a casual mysogonist, if not worse.
That's a fact. It's part of our culture's and society's norms and conventions which can be measured.
At best, someone throwing around such words is simply inconsiderate/ignorant or too young to know better.
If they do know better and use those words anyways then that implies approval, a lack of empathy, and in the specific case of "rape" a latent dislike towards women.
I will not be friendly with that kind of person. Period.
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You can debate the intent of the women's choice of clothing, but it is irrelevant. Other people don't get to decide what a short skirt means to her.
I don't actually disagree with this statement, but it now strikes me that perhaps I should. It seems to be fundamentally at odds with MP-Ryan's previous post about the observer's rather than the actor's interpretation being paramount.
Convince me why it's different for visual presentation over verbal.
Then convince me why I can't put up swastikas everywhere and claim they're the Native American good luck symbol and nobody else's opinion matters.
It's not as interesting a philosophical question as you might think.
It is still up to the observer to decide what meaning they interpret visually as well - while she clearly has her own interpretation of what her appearance means, she should also be aware that the observer will form their own judgement and act accordingly, the same as with speech.
Here's the part where this gets uninteresting: the observer is still bound by moral, ethical, and legal codes in their behaviour that results from the interpretation. They can judge all they like, same as with speech, but that does not give them the right to judge or act in a way that breaks moral/ethical/legal codes, something that often gets forgotten by people who do engage in victim-blaming (not saying you're one of them). It's that troublesome classical liberalism harm principle ruining everyone's fun again.
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"Jewish" is inconsiderate? Bloody anti-semite! I should take my belt off and give you a thrashing.
But humour aside, this thread is quite an eye opener and a good exercise for our debating muscles.
I was going to make a 'Master Debater' joke, but realised that this thread isn't exactly the right place for it.
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Firespawn, I'm again going to trust that you actually understood what I was getting at before you responded with a joke. Hopefully I'm right this time.
Your trust was well placed.
Yes understand how the war on drugs is going. Yes I understand that it's not, and most likely never will, reach an ultimate conclusion. But I think if nothing was done, it'd be a lot worse.
I'm not saying that my idea is the best one, or stop it completely, but after a few cases the numbers would drop dramatically and make alternatives disregarded today preferable.
But that is my opinion, fueled by bias and prejudice and the naive hope that every person convicted would be truly guilty. But I admit that I'm an idealist.
Other peoples' definition of idealism is very strange to me. I always believed it meant "do everything you can to make life as close to the ideal as possible". As opposed to "rigidly adhere to an abstract doctrine regardless of what might work in the real world".
When Nixon began the drug war, 80% of the funding that was spent initially went to drug treatment programs. This worked - both numbers of addicts and the crime rate in affected areas fell substantially. As the seventies became the eighties more and more money was shifted to incarceration and arresting every last low level dealer and addict, you know, for idealism, zero tolerance. The inner city became a battleground as jobs fled. If you want to observe the consequences of the modern drug war, just walk through any ghetto in Detroit or Baltimore.
Not that that's very analogous to our current subject of debate, but it's a perfect example of what happens when you start valuing abstract ideals over what's actually best for everyone.
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Mr. Vega I hope you have seen The Wire, you would love it
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Oh I have, I have. But I didn't want to give the impression that I just formed my opinion on the matter from watching it and all of David Simon's interviews. Hell, even Milton Friedman condemned the drug war on the same grounds.
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"Jewish" is inconsiderate? Bloody anti-semite! I should take my belt off and give you a thrashing.
Unless you like losing your pants it might be advisable to read posts more carefully before taking your belt off :)
Inconsiderate use of a word != use of a word is inconsiderate.
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Mikes shut up. He was joking. You broke our momentum!
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You can debate the intent of the women's choice of clothing, but it is irrelevant. Other people don't get to decide what a short skirt means to her.
I don't actually disagree with this statement, but it now strikes me that perhaps I should. It seems to be fundamentally at odds with MP-Ryan's previous post about the observer's rather than the actor's interpretation being paramount.
Convince me why it's different for visual presentation over verbal.
Then convince me why I can't put up swastikas everywhere and claim they're the Native American good luck symbol and nobody else's opinion matters.
It's not as interesting a philosophical question as you might think.
It is still up to the observer to decide what meaning they interpret visually as well - while she clearly has her own interpretation of what her appearance means, she should also be aware that the observer will form their own judgement and act accordingly, the same as with speech.
Here's the part where this gets uninteresting: the observer is still bound by moral, ethical, and legal codes in their behaviour that results from the interpretation. They can judge all they like, same as with speech, but that does not give them the right to judge or act in a way that breaks moral/ethical/legal codes, something that often gets forgotten by people who do engage in victim-blaming (not saying you're one of them). It's that troublesome classical liberalism harm principle ruining everyone's fun again.
Exactly. We don't give a damn what they think, what matters is the break between their opinion and action.
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Using a word like rape casually brands a person as a casual mysogonist, if not worse.
That's a fact. It's part of our culture's and society's norms and conventions which can be measured.
At best, someone throwing around such words is simply inconsiderate/ignorant or too young to know better.
If they do know better and use those words anyways then that implies approval, a lack of empathy, and in the specific case of "rape" a latent dislike towards women.
I disagree. I don't approve the act of raping, but I have used it to describe a severe loss before.
What does that make me then? An exception?
GOD DAMMIT I JUST WANT TO MAKE A POST STOP WARNING ME ABOUT NEW POSTS
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160 replies in 12 hours.
(http://i.imgur.com/LGZPT.jpg)
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Using a word like rape casually brands a person as a casual mysogonist, if not worse.
That's a fact. It's part of our culture's and society's norms and conventions which can be measured.
At best, someone throwing around such words is simply inconsiderate/ignorant or too young to know better.
If they do know better and use those words anyways then that implies approval, a lack of empathy, and in the specific case of "rape" a latent dislike towards women.
I disagree. I don't approve the act of raping, but I have used it to describe a severe loss before.
What does that make me then? An exception?
GOD DAMMIT I JUST WANT TO MAKE A POST STOP WARNING ME ABOUT NEW POSTS
No, it means you're probably a young guy in the company of other young guys and you're not really thinking about what you're saying.
It's the same with 'gay' - some day you'll look back and think 'wow...I got very little benefit from those terms, and could've done a fair bit of harm.'
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"Jewish" is inconsiderate? Bloody anti-semite! I should take my belt off and give you a thrashing.
Unless you like losing your pants it might be advisable to read posts more carefully before taking your belt off :)
I'll have you know that my pants are perfectly able to stay secured to my person without need of a belt. My TROUSERS on the other hand...
Pretty much the same case. ;7
Okay, I'm done with being a dick and minor annoyance. I shall see how this progresses by tomorrow evening.
Vega, you raise several good points and soundly trumped me in this debate. You are a true Master Debater.
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One point that hasn't been raised so far in this topic is that rape, unlike murder, theft or many other crimes is an unjustifiable crime. There are socially acceptable reasons you can use to justify a murder or theft. I can't think of a single justification that would hold up for why someone knowingly committed a rape.
So despite Trashman's assertions to the contrary, there is a big difference between rape and murder in how they are viewed by people. If you tell someone you were correctly convicted of murder, they'll want to know the circumstances. They'll wonder if the victim in some way deserved it. The same doesn't hold true for a rapist.
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One thing that really interests me about this overall topic is the confluence of the casual usage of "rape" with other terms like "gay" or "retarded." In the case of the latter two, you have people using terms referring to groups of people in a pejorative sense, usually meaning "stupid." At least in my view, and I'd think in most other people's, the main point of offense there is that you're associating a group term that should be neutral at worst with something negative...in other words, by doing something like associating "gay" with "stupid," you're (perhaps unintentionally) implying that homosexuals as a whole are also stupid. Obviously, that's a bad thing.
When it comes to a term like "rape," though, the situation is subtly different. There, you're using a term that defines a horrifically negative action to describe something else negative...obviously not nearly to the same degree, but in a very exaggerated sense. In this case, the offense doesn't arise from associating a neutral term with a negative target (since I think any civilized, informed individual would agree that rape is horrible), but with the term itself. I'm not saying that casual usage of "rape" is any more or less appropriate than those other terms, or that the concerns raised in this thread aren't completely valid, but I think there is a difference at work here, though perhaps an inconsequential one.
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honestly at this point im just posting to mark where i left off. this thread is actually a good read.
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That's an interesting point, Mongoose.
I guess I'd say one of my big problems with casual use of the term 'rape' -- in terms of conflating a huge negative with a small negative -- is that the great challenge we face in combating rape is that it's often trivialized, rationalized, diminished, obfuscated, and written off. Anything which works against the goal of saying 'hey, guys, rape is a huge, half-invisible problem' feels strategically detrimental.
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I'm not saying that casual usage of "rape" is any more or less appropriate than those other terms, or that the concerns raised in this thread aren't completely valid, but I think there is a difference at work here, though perhaps an inconsequential one.
Oh I agree. I think a better example might be misuse of terms like The Holocaust or the Rape of Nanjing.
What would you think of someone who said their team got their butts kicked like Jews in the Holocaust? Your team got killed like Chinese children in Nanjing?
However the comparisons to being called a retard, or Jew are much easier to grasp.
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Planescape: Torment motha
The funny thing is I guessed that, and I've never even played the game.
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I'm not saying that casual usage of "rape" is any more or less appropriate than those other terms, or that the concerns raised in this thread aren't completely valid, but I think there is a difference at work here, though perhaps an inconsequential one.
Oh I agree. I think a better example might be misuse of terms like The Holocaust or the Rape of Nanjing.
What would you think of someone who said their team got their butts kicked like Jews in the Holocaust? Your team got killed like Chinese children in Nanjing?
However the comparisons to being called a retard, or Jew are much easier to grasp.
err. would you mind explaining that? I am familiar with what both events are. And if anyone described something in either of those two terms, I would be A creeped, B surprised they knew the second, C kinda horrified at the comparison
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So, are there any hyperboles involving victimization we can use in a... let's call it "mature"... conversation?
Murdered, slaughtered, butchered, cut to pieces, smashed, owned, demolished, decimated, annihilated, obliterated, curbstomped, flattened, rolled over, destroyed, thrashed, dominated, crushed, mutilated, eviscerated, splattered, pasted...
Need I go on?
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dominated...
Hmmmm..... almost, but not quite, going full circle.
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Violated
There's another one
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dominated...
Hmmmm..... almost, but not quite, going full circle.
I don't really think "dominated" has anything like the connotations of rape. It doesn't necessarily imply violence and sexual debasement like rape does.
I think a lot of people just don't know how many rape survivors there are. If you know more women than you can count on one hand, one of them has almost certainly experienced it, and may have experienced it more than once. I can tell you from personal experience that you can never know who among your acquaintances may have gone through a sexual assault, and making a rape joke around such a person is basically like taking a butcher knife and stabbing her in the soul.
And that goes double on the internet, since there are (a) a lot more people you are dealing with, and (b) a lot of women who pretend to be men/hide their gender and are assumed to be men due to cultural sexism to avoid being stigmatized, taunted, catcalled, harassed, and stalked by men.
Somewhat tangentially, I find "Don't be 'That Guy'" to be one of the best anti-sexual harassment slogans ever. It really paints people who victimize women as being every bit as nasty as they really are. Nobody wants to be That Guy.
One thing that really interests me about this overall topic is the confluence of the casual usage of "rape" with other terms like "gay" or "retarded." In the case of the latter two, you have people using terms referring to groups of people in a pejorative sense, usually meaning "stupid." At least in my view, and I'd think in most other people's, the main point of offense there is that you're associating a group term that should be neutral at worst with something negative...in other words, by doing something like associating "gay" with "stupid," you're (perhaps unintentionally) implying that homosexuals as a whole are also stupid. Obviously, that's a bad thing.
Too specific, I think. It's really more an implication that homosexuality is disgusting, bad, undesirable in general. "Gay" in this sense doesn't mean "stupid", it's a catch-all pejorative that basically can be used for anything bad.
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I don't really think "dominated" has anything like the connotations of rape. It doesn't necessarily imply violence and sexual debasement like rape does.
Yeah, I know.
So, on this topic I've had a question come to mind, and maybe it'll be enlightening for others around here: Why has there been this movement to say rape "survivor" instead of rape "victim?" Sorry if this is a tired old talking point by now, but I honestly didn't get the memo on that one. I don't see why it's bad to be called a victim of a crime when you're, well.... the victim of a crime. We don't really have carjacking survivors, battery survivors, etc. (or do we?) so why is rape set apart like that?
EDIT: Actually, I think I'm already getting it. Carjacking and battery aren't really comparable I suppose, and I'm kind of hard pressed to think of something that is.
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I think it's basically as simple as the fact that surviving something is seen as positive while being a victim is seen as negative. So when the crime comes with a massive blow to the ego it's better to use a positive term.
Oh I agree. I think a better example might be misuse of terms like The Holocaust or the Rape of Nanjing.
What would you think of someone who said their team got their butts kicked like Jews in the Holocaust? Your team got killed like Chinese children in Nanjing?
However the comparisons to being called a retard, or Jew are much easier to grasp.
err. would you mind explaining that? I am familiar with what both events are. And if anyone described something in either of those two terms, I would be A creeped, B surprised they knew the second, C kinda horrified at the comparison
I'm not certain what needs explaining. Mongoose was saying that comparing saying "My team got raped in that game" to "That idea is gay" or "I got Jewed in that deal" isn't a good comparison because the latter two are pejorative in their meaning. So I was giving an analogy which is much closer. Simply substituting one horrific event for another one.
I find it ironic that Trashman had no problem with saying his team got raped. I do kinda wonder if as a Croatian, he'd have an issue with saying he got Ethnically Cleansed.
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I don't know, I didn't get a formal memo either. But I'd guess it's because individuals who have come through a rape already feel like they're ****ed up, ruined, worthless -- in a word, victimized. It feels a lot better to be a survivor, like you've beaten a natural disaster or something, than to be a victim, like you've been conned or noted down as a statistic.
e: beaten so hard
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I can sort of understand that. I'm still not really sold on it, but if that's the term they want to use, then it's their call of course.
Makes me think of "little people" versus "dwarfs" actually. In my mind, if you've got a form of dwarfism, you're a dwarf and it's just a neutral term. Whereas little people sounds condescending. Maybe they don't like being associated with mythical non-human creatures...
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he'd have an issue with saying he got Ethnically Cleansed.
i got to use that one on bnet now. :D
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There is a point I wanted to make in this thread. Trashman said something about that rape could not be worse then murder.
The thing is, if I got raped, I'd probably have problems with that later on.
If I get murdered, I won't. Because I am dead. I won't even have to worry about anything at all.
Therefore, getting murdered is actually the best thing that can happen to you.
What about your faimily?
My family will remember me for the life I lead and mourn it's untimely end.
If I get raped, my family will mourn that I will never be able to live the life I could have lived.
Or what if you go to hell? You just got cheated out of X more years of life!
There is no hell. Period. It just ends.
If I get raped, I'd probably get traumatized. Many people who are traumatized commit suicide. If rape is better then murder, why would the people who got raped then murder themselves? Masochism?
Or..what about torture? Since it can include inserting object in places you dont' want them to be? and it can last for days, weeks? It can break you 100 tiems worse than any rape ever could.
Rape is a form of torture, often conducted because the person doing it enjoys making others suffer for his own pleasures.
Does that mean we shoudl never use phrases like "When's the next patch? This is pure torture!" ..because.. you know..lot's of soldiers in the world. I bet some survied torture and use internet.
Indeed, you should not.
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OH right. Trashman can apperently not reply in Gen. Disc. Sorry about that - It is rather unwise to quote a post and then reply to it 6 pages later, but i just wanted to make my points.
EDIT: I recall that someone mentioned that we had "lost a member" due to the careless atitude displayed towards women... who was that? -Sara-?
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EDIT: I recall that someone mentioned that we had "lost a member" due to the careless atitude displayed towards women... who was that? -Sara-?
Rian. -Sara- is just busy or something, she pops in occasionally.
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Hmm. I am unfamiliar with Rian. From what I understood from that post, it's a shame. I'd like to have more context.
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see, it's all of you guys doing those "get back to the kitchen" jokes. For shame. :nono:
:warp:
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Speaking of which I have toast to attend to
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Hmm. I am unfamiliar with Rian. From what I understood from that post, it's a shame. I'd like to have more context.
IIRC, Goober had a serious derpout about women in combat in the context of it being done in the FS universe.
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Yeah that was more Goob's fault. And it wasn't particularly a matter of anger or emotional distress - she just didn't have the time or patience to deal with a forum so thoroughly, uh, fraternal.
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There is no hell. Period. It just ends.
You seem to be an expert on the subject. Tell me how you gained this absolute truth. Do you have a lot of experience with dying? :p
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no stop don't go that way, go back, turn around
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My family will remember me for the life I lead and mourn it's untimely end.
If I get raped, my family will mourn that I will never be able to live the life I could have lived.
The first is worse than the second. And rape does not make enjoying life impossible or something, it just leads to more depression, as many other traumatic experiences do.
If rape is better then murder, why would the people who got raped then murder themselves? Masochism?
So, how many actually do murder themselves? Some fraction of rape victims. Thus this line of thinking does not apply to overwhelming majority of rapes.
"When's the next patch? This is pure torture!"
Indeed, you should not.
Am I the only one who finds this notion really ridiculous?
Anyway, I am not trying to diminish the seriousness of rape, but I certainly do think murder is surely a considerably worse crime than rape. I know that (god forbid) if I had to hypotheticaly choose between rape and murder for me or my loved ones, then rape it is, no doubt about it.
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I don't think it's really productive to decide whether one is worse than the other. Murder, death, being killed, these are all universal tragedies and nobody thinks they're good or tries to excuse them.
e: Well, except in all the cases where we sanction murder, but I don't think there is any believable justification for rape as there is for murder as Kara said earlier
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I don't think it's really productive to decide whether one is worse than the other. Murder, death, being killed, these are all universal tragedies and nobody thinks they're good or tries to excuse them.
Well, it is of great importance in practice when deciding about appropiate legal punishments for such deeds, as punishment should fit the crime.
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I don't think it's really productive to decide whether one is worse than the other. Murder, death, being killed, these are all universal tragedies and nobody thinks they're good or tries to excuse them.
Well, it is of great importance in practice when deciding about appropiate legal punishments for such deeds, as punishment should fit the crime.
There is a point at which such discussions are meaningless, because ultimately the punishment will be the same: removal of the ability for the perpetrator to lead their own life. Life in prison, capital punishment. They accomplish the same thing.
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There is no hell. Period. It just ends.
You seem to be an expert on the subject. Tell me how you gained this absolute truth. Do you have a lot of experience with dying? :p
Nah - it's just that the whole hell thing requires a belief in a spirit that is disconnected from the body in some way - that does not explain how your 'soul' can be influenced by drugs and brain damage, for one. The notion of hell is also based on a book that, as far as we know, might only have been written to justify the conquest of Israel by the jewish people some 4000 years ago.
Anyway, I am not trying to diminish the seriousness of rape, but I certainly do think murder is surely a considerably worse crime than rape. I know that (god forbid) if I had to hypotheticaly choose between rape and murder for me or my loved ones, then rape it is, no doubt about it.
On the other hand, if I had the hypotheticaly choose between murdering or raping someone, I'd choose the former.
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Any attempt to turn this into a religious discussion will be dealt with harshly. And with thumbscrews. :p
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Any attempt to turn this into a religious discussion will be dealt with harshly. And with thumbscrews. :p
(http://www.crypticcomet.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/spanishinquisition.jpg)
NOBODY EXPECTS THE KARAJORMA INQUISITION
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why are you still here? you just admitted that we and yourself don't gell? go find someone else to bother, hence the blog comment in the other thread, very easy way to find like minded people.
please move to samiam thread
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samiam: Your "contributions" have been split out to The samiam show (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80687). Feel free to post there.
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This thread was 2 pages long when I skimmed it and decided to get back to it later. Ouch. Nice read, but loooooooong! Anyways:
I know that (god forbid) if I had to hypotheticaly choose between rape and murder for me or my loved ones, then rape it is, no doubt about it.
While I agree with you, I feel it might be enlightening to inform you that, knowing several rape victims myself and being very close to a couple, if your family member knew of your decision, after the fact, they would most likely take several years to forgive you. That's right, most would rather have died. While they do realize that they can heal and live a mostly normal life surrounded by those that do actually care about them as more than a conquest and piece of meat to satisfy their desires, (the statistic about family members / friends being the most common perps is correct 110% as far as I can see with what I observe) they fluctuate between getting on with their life, to wishing it would have just ended (when they are depressed).
Many victims are re-victimized multiple times by different perpetrators. Why? Their whole sense of self worth and what constitutes the correct boundaries for their person have been forcibly re-written by someone who they were supposed to be able to trust. Thus, they don't report because "they aren't worth it" (they've been raped so many times, it must be true), or "no one will believe me anyways" (young victim / victim of multiple multiple assaults by different perps.. what are the chances? Actually, pretty good bad), or "but I wanted it, so it's my fault" (victim's resistance or passive non-compliance finally succums to repeated abuse and programming to give in to what the perp wants - their volition, their active participation in the perp's sick, twisted game. This will be thrown back in the victim's face for as long as the perp has influence over the victim. The perp has achieved, in their mind, total domination.) Someone who has been raised in this manner will be easily noticed by one who preys on these types of people. I don't know how they (perps) do it, but they just know. Victims of other forms of physical abuse are at higher risk of rape because of the same type of behavioral results (rapists notice that they act different, then see how far they can go which usually is all the way, as the victim has been programmed not to make trouble for their abuser). Victims often state that they feel like they had "HURT ME" tattooed on their forehead.
Victims (ok, survivors... to me it doesn't matter, I think they have no less value because of what happened to them, but I think maybe I will try to switch to survivor if it helps any potential ... almost did it again... potential survivor reading this) are not really hard to find, it's just that most will not tell just anyone that they are raped. People tell me I should be a bar tender because I listen well (ok, to people's stories. I don't always get everything that they tell me but I will listen to all of it nonetheless). You would be amazed at the sheer number of victims sorry, survivors that you would never guess had anything but a happy life growing up.
Here's some reading that may help open some eyes: (they are for survivors, but just reading what one survivor is posting to help another is very eye-opening)
Revictimization (http://www.pandorasproject.org/articles/revictimization.html) (read this one if you don't read anything else)
Why you didn't tell (http://www.pandys.org/articles/whyyoudidnttell.html)
Why sexual abuse can never be your fault (http://www.pandys.org/articles/sexualabuseisnotyourfault.html)
EDIT: They have a forum; you can read the articles etc... just don't go registering and posting please, it's for survivors. They have plenty of help on the forum.
http://pandys.org/forums/
The type of tool that rapists (others as well) use to control their victim:
Wiki: Gaslighting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting) | Gaslighting: The extremes of emotional abuse (http://www.helium.com/items/1920844-gaslighting-the-extremes-of-emotional-abuse)
You might wonder why I know about this. Well, when I'm trying to help my friends not feel suicidal and masochistic all the time, and I keep running into brick walls, I try to do research to see if I can better understand the problem. It's not pretty. :(
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For convenience, I put the Revictimization article here. If you don't want to read it, skip this post; that is all that is in this post.
by: Louise
I am a survivor of sexual and other abuse in my childhood, as well as domestic violence and partner rape. As I began to heal, it occurred to me that many of the things I had felt in the abusive relationship were things I had felt much earlier as an abused child.
While it is important not to subscribe to stereotypes that a certain "type" of person is repeatedly raped or experiences domestic violence, it is known that the risk of revictimization by sexual assault is approximately doubled for survivors of child sexual abuse (1). For example, in Diana Russell's study of women who had experienced incestuous abuse as children, two thirds were subsequently raped (emphasis by jr2) (2).
This article discusses revictimization drawing on literature together with my understanding of how it worked for me. It should not be seen as a generalization that only child abuse survivors experience repeated rape or domestic violence - or that survivors of child sexual abuse are sitting ducks for further abuse. Sometimes, even people from stable, loving families are subject to the dynamics of later domestic violence. And it cannot be stated strongly enough that any person can be subject to sexual assault. Nevertheless, child sexual and other abuse can leave us with vulnerabilities that abusers may be quick to exploit. It's important that we see repeated victimization not as a reason to hate ourselves, but as stemming from wounds incurred through no fault of our own and for which we deserve our own compassion.
Read through, and if this fits for you, please know that there is help available.
CHILD SEXUAL / OTHER ABUSE AND REVICTIMIZATION
Were you sexually, physically or emotionally abused as a child? Did you experience more of the same when you got older? Have you been in a relationship where you were beaten, raped or otherwise abused? If the answer is yes, you may feel, as many survivors of repeated abuse do, that you have a “sign on your back”, that you “attract” abusers or even that you were born to be the recipient of other people’s abuse. One of the saddest legacies of repeated abuse is that survivors often feel that if it’s happened so often, they must somehow deserve it. Unfortunately, we live in a society that agrees. Judith Herman writes:
The phenomenon of repeated victimization, indisputably real, calls for great care in interpretation. For too long, psychiatric opinion has simply reflected the crude social judgment that survivors “ask for abuse." The earlier concepts of masochism and the more recent formulations of addiction to trauma imply that victims seek and derive gratification for repeated abuse. This is rarely true (3)
So, why does revictimization happen? Before we go on to look at just some of the reasons, a reminder: This is not an exercise in how to blame ourselves more. Even if there`are factors that make some of vulnerable to further abuse, perpetrators alone are responsible for the abuse they commit.
WHY REVICTIMIZATION HAPPENS - SOME OF THE REASONS
Personalities forged in an environment of early abuse: Children who are abused by people they are close to learn to equate love with violence and sexual exploitation. They have not learned to create safe and appropriate boundaries with people, and they grow up unable to see themselves as having any right to choice. Their self-image is so damaged that they may see nothing wrong with even extremely abusive treatment of them by others. It is seen as unavoidable and the ultimate cost of love. Some women sexually abused as children may believe that their sexuality is all they have of any worth. (4).
Compulsion to repeat trauma: Bessel van der Kolk writes, "Many traumatized people expose themselves, seemingly compulsively, to situations reminiscent of the original trauma. These behavioral reenactments are rarely consciously understood to be related to earlier life experiences (5)". Survivors of earlier rape and abuse may put themselves at risk of further harm, not because they want to be abused or hurt, but because they may be seeking a different, better`outcome, or to have more control. It may also be because they believe they deserve the pain inflicted on them. Often, reenactment has a compulsive and involuntary feel. Survivors may feel completely numb, and unaware of how reenactment is taking place (6). Conversely, it may call forth the same terror and shame as experienced in childhood. van der Kolk further explains,
People who are exposed early to violence or neglect come to expect it as a way of life. They see the chronic helplessness of their mothers and fathers' alternating outbursts of affection and violence; they learn that they themselves have no control. As adults they hope to undo the past by love, competency, and exemplary behavior. When they fail they are likely to make sense out of this situation by blaming themselves. When they have little experience with nonviolent resolution of differences, partners in relationships alternate between an expectation of perfect behavior leading to perfect harmony and a state of helplessness, in which all verbal communication seems futile. A return to earlier coping mechanisms, such as self-blame, numbing (by means of emotional withdrawal or drugs or alcohol), and physical violence sets the stage for a repetition of the childhood trauma and "return of the repressed (7)
The effect of trauma: It is true that some people may have a series of violent partners, or encounters with rapists. I had a friend who was subjected to rape three times in two years . A family member - echoing typical victim-blame - sneeringly asked me "why she kept leaving herself open to it. - wouldn't you think that if she went through it once, she should have known how to steer clear of creeps?" This reflects a lack of knowledge about the workings of trauma: While some survivors may be overly cautious about everybody, other traumatized people actually have a harder time forming accurate assessments of danger (8). The above question also absolves the perpetrator who falsely seeks to engage the trust of a trauma survivor in order to abuse them.
Traumatic Bonding: Judith Herman writes about the tendency of abused children to cling tenaciously to the very parents who hurt them (9) Perpetrators of sexual abuse may capitalize on this tendency by giving their victim the only sense of specialness, or being loved, that they have ever had. Bessel van der Kolk tells us that people subjected to trauma and neglect are vulnerable to developing the tendency to traumatically bond with those who harm them. Traumatic bonding is often behind the excuses of battered women for the violence of their partners, and for the repeated returning to a batterer (10).
REVICTIMIZATION AND ME
Unfortunately my adult experiences of rape and battering were not new to me. Being battered by both my parents since infancy and sexually abused throughout childhood and early teens (by non-related perpetrators), and receiving little in the way of protection or belief taught me some powerful lessons, which I brought to an abusive partner. I remember exactly what I felt the first time he hit me. He cracked me across the face, and as I cradled my rapidly swelling cheekbone, I was certainly upset. But there was another, deeper feeling of validation; something went "click" inside me. It was a sense of correctness about what he had done, an utter familiarity which confirmed a bone-badness I had always felt. The first time he raped me, there was a similar - and terribly powerful - sense of meeting with something I seemed destined for. It works differently for different people, but let me share with you some of the specific lessons of childhood that I believe made me fair game for a battering and raping partner - you may identify:
- The belief that I was dirty and utterly corrupt: From a very early age, the sexual abuse I experienced combined with the words and actions of my parents left me with a sense that I had been born inherently dirty. Judith Herman writes that children who experience abuse and abandonment conclude - need to conclude - that their inner badness is responsible for the abuse, in order to sustain attachments to those who hurt them (11). By the time I was 18 and met my abusive partner, that sense of me - but not an abuser - being bad had been intact for a long time
- The belief that I was not worth standing up for: Abandoned to my fate as a child, there were times in the violent relationship where I honestly felt embarrassed and foolish for complaining about the violence; it was, after all, only me it was being done to. As a 4 year old child, I had disclosed sexual abuse to my mother, who had said she didn't want to hear about it. I concluded - and I remember thinking it - that if something bad happens to me, it doesn't matter. In short, I didn't matter. This was to have a devastating impact as I grew up.
- The belief that It was my fault: Haven't many people who were beaten and sexually abused as children heard things like "you make me do this to you" or, "I wouldn't do this to you if you weren't so bad"? Hence, this is what we learn, and what we believe when people continue harming us.
- The belief that love involves pain: Love and bashing and rape were not incompatible to me. Even when I felt so hurt, and was being degraded so badly, I still believed there might be some love in it that I could get if only I was good enough. And this is what I'd been told; that I would be loved if I was good enough - which I somehow never seemed to be. By the time I was older, the computer file in my head on love always came up with themes of abuse. I had been sexually abused at 13 by a particularly nasty piece of work, a man whose kids I babysat, who told me how much he loved me; how special and beautiful I was to him. Anytime I objected to the abuse, he threatened not to love me anymore: "Don't you want to be Uncle Bill's darlin'? Don't you love your Uncle Bill?" I was so completely affection-starved - I remember this as a time in my life when nobody gave me any love - and that is no exaggeration. I did not want to be abused but I did want to be loved. Like many abusers, he preyed on that. I had only ever received love from poisonous sources; I simply did not see any other options. How can you recite a beautiful poem you've never learned? Perhaps all you know is the gutter version. I fantasized about other more ideal forms of love, but I knew that for someone as fundamentally bad as me, they were but wishful thinking. I had been taught that I was beyond the pale of the tender, safe love I desperately craved. I reasoned that if my own life-givers could not love me, whom else could I expect to love me?
- The belief that sex is supposed to degrade you: For some time, I was orally raped on a daily basis at age 4, and a close family friend started raping me when I was eight. This lasted until I was ten, and was extremely painful and frightening. These things were my first point of reference regarding sex , and for a long time, it was to determine how I viewed all other encounters. I believed that the sexual abuse in my childhood meant I was bad. Growing up did not change that view. From the unhealed child in me the belief operated that sex was actually supposed to involve hurt, degradation and no choice for me. This influenced a large part of my response, or more correctly non-response to my partner's brutality.
- The belief that you must always forgive because an abuser matters more than you: Many abused children unconditionally forgive the adults who hurt them - it's part of traumatic bonding and part of the way they blame themselves. This didn't change as I got older either: As a little girl, I picked up my battered body and went to mummy who had done the battering. I continued to offer daddy my love - even though he didn't really seem to want it, and as he raised the bar ever higher as to earning his love. If mummy cried and said she didn't mean to hurt me, I flung my arms around her, cried with her and said it was okay. I recall my mother saying often as I grew up, "Louise, you have such a forgiving heart." That unconditional forgiving for the worst treatment; the most outrageous betrayals, was also to be taken into my relationship. He hurt me - I felt sorry for him - and forgave him.
- The belief that I didn't deserve any better: I honestly believed that I was a cheap slut who had failed to be good enough to get better treatment. I was taught that men don't respect "girls like me" and any bad treatment is thus justified.
- Regression and being drawn into the same space as childhood: I believe the sexual abuse in my childhood most severely affected my autonomy. Can a child say no to an adult? Some may argue, "but an adult can say no to an adult." Yes, but not where there is an established power differential, especially one based on the fear of violence. And not when you've learned again and again that "no" has no currency. As a child I was used by whomever felt like it with no say in the matter. Even if I was older in the relationship, a sense of choice still seemed an abstract absurdity.
- Traumatic bonding: Abusers traumatically bind their victims to them by alternating threat with intermittent kindness (12). After my partner had hurt me, he sometimes offered me comfort - really warm, loving comfort, which would make everything okay again for awhile - just as it had in childhood. As the young woman being harmed, I felt very little girl-ish, and sometimes I just wanted a cuddle. It felt like only he was there for me, even if he hurt me too. As in my childhood, it did not matter that violator was also comforter, it was still better than nothing. I just needed that contact. His duality of roles as both violator and comforter was to cement my sense of entrapment further.
- Inaccurate assessments of danger: Abuse survivors are not to be blamed, of course, for not being able to second-guess that a batterer will be a batterer. But for me, there was a tendency to follow anybody who "acted nice", believing that they would be nice - and this even when niceness alternated with cruelty.
As a woman who lived in a violent relationship; returned to it again and again, loved the abuser and truly cared about him, I have been patronized, had insulting inferences drawn about my intelligence, been branded as "sick", and "masochistic" - that last by a psychiatrist whom I told about the relationship. Many of us will recognize these labels. People who blame you don't understand that layer piled upon layer of trauma may tend to produce a crippling of ability to care for oneself in the ways non-traumatized people would see as commonsense.. Child abuse really is like a cancer; left untreated that malignancy can metastasize into further and possible fatal dangers - indeed, I am lucky to be alive.
But does this need to be the case? Let's look at the next section.
SOLUTIONS AND HEALING
Socially, picking up on children who have been hurt and offering early intervention so that they carry far less damage into adulthood with them would be a great big plus. Not kicking abuse survivors in abusive relationships or who are repeatedly hurt by rape when they're down by branding them "stupid" and abandoning them - thus proving to them again that they're worthless - will also go a long way.
I think that what worked for me was that I at least had a concept of safe, nurturing love - even if I didn't feel I deserved it. Some people don't even have that concept, and I believe I am lucky that I did because it gave me a starting point. My fellow survivor, If you have identified with any of the above, I implore you to seek counselling to overturn those old scars and recognize that you too, have the same place in the scheme of fairness and love as anybody else. All that I learned, and all the ways in which it was reinforced have not, after all, stopped me from growing into a woman who knows that I don't deserve to be the recipient of other people's abuse. It was not my fault; I was not bad, and I can tell somebody with a mind to hurt me to go to hell - I owe them nothing; least of all my soul.
Does such a change in attitude rape-proof us? No, as long as there are perpetrators, we are all vulnerable regardless of what we think about ourselves. To say that somebody is raped because of their self-image is victim-blame - again - it's the perpetrator who takes advantage. But I do believe that the reduction in self-hatred and boundaries that come with healing make us less inclined to accommodate people who are disrespectful and even dangerous. Knowing I deserve to be safe - that I do not deserve to be raped - means that I listen to my gut, put distance between myself and abusive people and reduce my chances, at least for now, of being harmed again. Our safety is sometimes contingent on how much we value it; healing means changing patterns of devaluing it.
I healed. You can do it too, even if the damage is extensive. You are worth it. You are. You were not abused again and again because you deserve it. You have been traumatized, you were set up and others capitalized on it. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Please feel free to discuss multiple victimization at the Pandora's Aquarium message board and chat room - we understand, and we value you even if many others didn't.
Please give yourself compassion - you certainly have mine.
SOURCES
Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
Cited in Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
Van der Kolk, Bessel A. MD. "The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma: Re-enactment, Revictimization, and Masochism", Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Volume 12, Number 2, Pages 389-411, June 1989 http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk/
Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
Van der Kolk, Bessel A. MD. "The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma: Re-enactment, Revictimization, and Masochism", Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Volume 12, Number 2, Pages 389-411, June 1989 http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk/
Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
Van der Kolk, Bessel A. MD. "The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma: Re-enactment, Revictimization, and Masochism", Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Volume 12, Number 2, Pages 389-411, June 1989 http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk/
Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
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For anyone who hasn't "gotten it" from the previous 11 pages, jr2's last post there is mandatory reading for you, right now.
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Wow, jr2, those were really good posts.
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Thanks, but it's just something I learned whilst trying to help; all the info and credits go to the brave survivors who managed to pull through and then reach out to help others in the same boat. That's hard; not one of the survivors I know would ever ever want to speak about it to others (in a public way - and they will usually only tell personally those they trust and are close to).
I'm guessing the survivors who reached out to help were just that concerned about people who experienced the same thing as themselves so they pushed through and reached out anyways.
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This is why I prefer always being a ****ty poster
I don't always have to live up to that caliber of post quality
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When you use the word "rape" in the presence of someone who was actually raped... it will trigger all their red flags.
They will instantly be wary of you. At best it brands you as an inconsiderate/immature person with a lack of empathy. At worst they will be afraid that you are a potential rapist.
In any case... it will trigger all the bad feelings and memories that any victim will have.
In short... inconsiderate use of this word not only makes you a first rate asshole, it also has the potential of causing real harm.
Furthermore, it tells anyone who listens to you that you do not care about the potential harm your words may cause.
Be glad if someone tells you now, before you find yourself in a truly awkward situation with an actual rape victim.
Words of that caliber can be like bullets.... wanting to take them back after the fact - just isn't enough.
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Really? Tell us more about how improper use of the word "rape" could be a bad thing.
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the best girlfriend i ever had left me after being raped. it was quite sad. thats why, if i ever meet a rapist, i will likely impale them on the spot.
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I just want to know if I'm the only person who is feeling a constant cold fury at the fact that we are even capable of discussing this, not so much as the misuse of the word but more at the fact that it even exists to be misused in the first place?
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Words get used in fashions other than their original intent all the time. I have no issue with that regardless of the word
To me, it's simple reappropriation of a word
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Words get used in fashions other than their original intent all the time. I have no issue with that regardless of the word
To me, it's simple reappropriation of a word
Didn't you say this in your first post in this thread? Do you need all the responses recapped, or are you just going to start reading?
To me, it's no big deal to remind you that I'm going to slit your mother's throat, we've reappropriated that word around here to mean 'bake you a cake'. ****, dude, why do you look so uncomfortable?
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I've read the entire thread
Doesn't mean I am obligated to agree with any of it
I understand the points of view, but I'm not going to change what I do for the sake of someone else I have no attachment to
Which is everyone
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I've read the entire thread
Doesn't mean I am obligated to agree with any of it
I understand the points of view, but I'm not going to change what I do for the sake of someone else I have no attachment to
Which is everyone
That is your right, and it is our right to be disappointed in you for it.
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Sorry for destroying your thread. Well, I'll try to give it a push in a different direction.
I vaguely remember hearing about Iceland enacting a new law that allows a psychotherapist's testimony as evidence of rape. This is a difficult issue because often the only evidence in a rape case is the victim's testimony. What do you think would be acceptable evidence?
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That is your right, and it is our right to be disappointed in you for it.
You and everyone else
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The word "rape" is itself a misappropriated word.
(http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/174/trollface.png)
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It didn't have any sexual meaning whatsoever originally. It does now. That doesn't change the fact that the meaning of a word isn't resident with the individual - it communicates meaning through the interaction of speaker and listener.
When I was a kid I used to spout nonsense syllables (as many of us did) and one of them was 'chink'. The fact that I had no idea what this meant, couldn't assign it any meaning whatsoever beyond 'hi mommy's leg', doesn't deprive anyone of the right to tell me to stop saying it.
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and thus we have shown that rape is the best topic ever.
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Rape is awesome. It breaks up the monotony when you're driving through wheat or barley or lupin fields, anyway.
(http://www.reggie.net/photos/england/cambridgeshire/cambridge/streets/babraham_road/5707083_rapeseed_fields_yellow_flowers-600.jpg)
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I completely understand that some people have seen the word rape as simply being misappropriated. I don't think I used it often that way, but I would have at one time probably.
The problem is, most would simply think 'well, **** the rapists, they are assholes, but, I'm not, and I don't mean the word that way, and I refuse to allow some douchebag criminal to influence the way I mean the word rape!'.
That breaks down, because, to you, rape is a joke: meaning it's something you would never do, and are disgusted that anyone else would do, so you simply think that of course, no one would think you mean it that way. However, it helps to remember that rape, the actual, violent, disgusting act, is a joke to a rapist... not in the way you are trying to mean it. To them, it's a power play. Yeah, they are the Boss... they do what they want, when they want, in their minds, all of the underage or people not in a suitable frame of mind to consent, all of the people that they stalk into quiet places where no one will notice (or public places in the city where so many are present that no one will care) they are prey, meant to be used as they see fit.
Do you understand.. what it would be like to be a rape survivor? Come with me. I'm sorry I can't put this a bit more effectively, and, if a survivor should read this, I am sorry if I don't accurately represent you. I do not presume to have a clue what your life is like, this is only what I can conjecture, based on what I've seen, what I've heard from the people I know, and my poor narrative skills. The rest of you: Close your eyes, open them. Your father raped you until you turned 18 and left the house to live with your boyfriend (you can choose to be a guy or a girl, it would be about equally harmful in this situation probably). You never told anyone, because, you know, if you did, he would kill your mom. He said so. Your mother did not really like the situation, but a) she didn't know how she would support you and your siblings without your dad's income, b) she was being abused too, her father abused her (which you most likely don't know), she doesn't think it can ever change, she has the abused person mindset down pat, c) your father treats you kids so well... he never really hits you guys that much, like he does your mom... your dad tells your mom all the time that it's her fault... she 'makes him do it'... Why can't she love him like the kids do? All of this time, the shame boils underneath you. Because, you're really not that good, you know. Your father tells you that when he takes you home from school and spends time 'shopping' with you... except you are alone with him in the car, where no one can hear as he does things that make you freeze and go to your happy place where no one can hurt you. Well, it doesn't feel that way, anyways. Not until you wake up at night, fighting your pillows. That is, if he doesn't come to visit that night.
Now, imagine the feelings you have, at every public interaction with that man. Your birthday. Your dad smiling, giving you a big hug, telling you how much he loves you, all your friends and other family members laughing, talking with him... all of the time, he acts normal. Except you know that he is watching you. You will never get away.
When you finally leave the house, you can either a) pretend nothing happened, and live with the torture of trying to act 'normal' around the monster who is your father or b) breaking away from your family completely to avoid having anything to do with him or c) actually telling someone... but why would they believe you? You never said anything. This will break up the family, or even worse, they will turn on you and think that you are starting things. Besides, it must be your fault... I mean, why else would Uncle Bill have spent so much special time with you when you were visiting the family at his house starting when you were 14? And why would your band teacher have given you all those private instructions in 10th Grade? You're always the quiet type, because you think you are no good, but you really want to connect and relax and make new friends... so you go to parties.. you don't know that many people, but you try to just relax and have a few drinks... why do you always end up not remembering what happened the night before, with a very familiar feeling that something shameful and bad has happened? It felt like that when you couldn't sleep because you had nightmares, and mom was visiting family, and you were pretty sure your dad had visited the night before, but you really weren't sure because you were so tired, and telling nightmares from reality is hard when you feel like that.
You have a boyfriend now... you're really hoping that you can be good enough for him, and that you aren't really as bad as everyone says you are. You've had boyfriends before, but you were too shy and they weren't comfortable with how you reacted when they tried to get close to you. (This would be if the survivor has the tendency to shy away from being intimate, rather than being promiscuous. Others would be very loose, and would agree with the general consensus that they hear whispered about them in the locker room that they are just a 'whore'.)
However, your boyfriend starts hitting you when he is angry. Also, when you shut down when he tries to be intimate with you, he just goes ahead anyways. Your automatic reaction sometimes is to resist, but he seems to find that enjoyable. He has a few friends that he has over to the house to play XBOX360 or PS3. You don't mind, but it really bothers you when they are talking about how they 'raped' the other team, or got raped themselves. Because, whenever no one notices, your boyfriend looks at you when it is said. It just gives you a chill. It reminds you of your dad smiling at you and saying happy birthday and giving you a present.. you really felt aweful, considering that he said that what he did the night before was an early 'present'. That's alright. You're worthless anyways. You deserve it. You just leave the room and cut in the bedroom when it gets too uncomfortable. If you were braver, you would just end it all. Why are you such a slut? What's wrong with you? You're just a really bad person. You wish you could get someone to really love you just because they decide to... to really care for you. Not as a toy that they like to use and abuse for fun, but actually look out for you.
One of your friends notices that you are down and out all the time, and notices when you slip and bash yourself. She seems to really care about you, so eventually, you confide first about your boyfriend, and then about your whole life... to your surprise, she believes you. She tells you about her life, and how her family was close friends with another family. What no one knew, was that the oldest brother in the other family was molesting and eventually raping her. This continued from when she was 8 to when she was 12 and the other family moved away. She never told anyone until she told a counselor at school. When she did, the councilor 'helped' her tell the story by 'playacting' through it, literally doing the things that she described, and adding things... She thought no one would believe her if she told, either. She said she was lucky, because her parents had noticed her behavior - they had thought she was just quiet all these years, until they noticed that she was cutting, too, and they had done some research as to different reasons why she might be doing that. When they asked her if there was something really wrong that she hadn't ever told them, she said that they wouldn't believe her. With a little affirmation that they would believe her no matter what she told them, she finally told them everything. The school counselor was suspended pending an investigation. She got help from a real counselor.. she had to have one of her parents with her at first until she got to know and trust that the new counselor wasn't going to take advantage of her.
After talking with your friend about your situation for a month or two, you finally decide that maybe she is right. Maybe you don't deserve to be treated worse than an animal. You pack your things, and leave your boyfriend's house. Your friend says you can stay with her until you find a place to live. While you are there, you notice that she spends a lot of time playing computer games. She helps you get started playing some of them. You really like the temporary escape that it offers from all of the stress in your life. Actually, this whole experience of not living with someone who is hurting you is rather nice. You just wish you could get one of the add-ons.. you think they're called mods or something.. to work. You really like it. So, you ask your friend about it. She says that you could probably get info on how to get the game working right by searching the forums. The website is in the readme that she downloaded, she's just been too busy playing the other mods and hadn't gotten to that one. But she says to go ahead and look it up while she's at work since you've got the day off and you're a bit savvy. So, you look at the readme, and it says your best bet is to ask on the forums... ok, you've not really been much for online forums, and the name of the forum is a bit odd, you think, but here goes..
You notice that the community seems to be helpful and friendly, so you register, as you can't seem to find the answer to your question after a quick search. Your first two replies are very helpful and informative. You've gotten the game working with the mod that you wanted to play. You go back to the forum to post your thanks, when you notice another couple of replies. They're just the usual stuff about how that poster likes the mod too, and that you're in for a treat.. you type out your thanks to all in the quick-reply, you're about to hit 'Post' -- when something catches your eye. In the signature of the last person who posted, you can see a link, and the caption reads "Rape, and why it's the BEST topic ever!"
Your stop.
Your boyfriend is there, smirking.
Your father laughs, gives you a hug that lasts just a second too long, and gives you a present.
Ice water is running through your veins and you feel like you need to run for the toilet.
You quickly post the thanks that you meant for the first two posters, close the browser, and shut off the computer. Later, when your friend gets home, she asks if you got the game to work. You tell her that you did, but that the game really just isn't what you're into. She shrugs, says "Oh, that's too bad" and offers to play some COD with you, which you accept, glad to get Hard Light Productions out of your mind.
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When you use the word "rape" in the presence of someone who was actually raped... it will trigger all their red flags.
They will instantly be wary of you. At best it brands you as an inconsiderate/immature person with a lack of empathy. At worst they will be afraid that you are a potential rapist.
In any case... it will trigger all the bad feelings and memories that any victim will have.
In short... inconsiderate use of this word not only makes you a first rate asshole, it also has the potential of causing real harm.
Furthermore, it tells anyone who listens to you that you do not care about the potential harm your words may cause.
Be glad if someone tells you now, before you find yourself in a truly awkward situation with an actual rape victim.
Words of that caliber can be like bullets.... wanting to take them back after the fact - just isn't enough.
Pretty much finishes the topic.
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I laughed at jr2's post (probably shouldn't of, but it did and there's no point in lying about that)
Great read, excellent description and narrative. It gets you into the possible mind of someone who underwent something such as that
Still doesn't change my view though
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Can't have this rather good thread end on that kind of stupid note, now can we?
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I laughed at jr2's post (probably shouldn't of, but it did and there's no point in lying about that)
Great read, excellent description and narrative. It gets you into the possible mind of someone who underwent something such as that
Still doesn't change my view though
I just want to point out that 'heh, nice post, i'm still Ayn Rand though' isn't much of a contribution.
On that note - since HLP, unlike many other forums, doesn't ban for being young, depressed, and pleading for attention - here's a friendly reminder that you have a forum ignore list, and this thread provides a great list of people who should be on it.
Posting is better when some posts are optional reads, and it's a great tool if you're worried about triggers, whether as a rape survivor or a vet.
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Sorry for destroying your thread. Well, I'll try to give it a push in a different direction.
I vaguely remember hearing about Iceland enacting a new law that allows a psychotherapist's testimony as evidence of rape. This is a difficult issue because often the only evidence in a rape case is the victim's testimony. What do you think would be acceptable evidence?
Create a new thread. This one isn't about the rules of evidence in criminal proceedings, which is what you're wanting to discuss (and is worthy of discussion, just not here).
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It should be noted that the
user luser complete idiot known as samiam was just esteemed forum troll Mustang19 back from the dead. He has been hammered.
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It should be noted that the user luser complete idiot known as samiam was just esteemed forum troll Mustang19 back from the dead. He has been hammered.
Did I not say when he first appeared that he was an alt-nick? Vindicated! =)
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It should be noted that the user luser complete idiot known as samiam was just esteemed forum troll Mustang19 back from the dead. He has been hammered.
A troll? That might explain the dudes obsession with CP and how science may validate it. Never before have I felt so insulted as an aspiring scientist when he made that thread.
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You can call me Holmes, I called it weeks ago (http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-smug.gif)
time to do some opium
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Quick, to the next thread Watson!
(http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2010/7/16/1279313643960/Sherlock-Holmes-006.jpg)
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It should be noted that the user luser complete idiot known as samiam was just esteemed forum troll Mustang19 back from the dead. He has been hammered.
Were Mustang and Unicorn20 the same guy then? Cause I only proved that samiam was Unicorn20. Not Mustang.
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It should be noted that the user luser complete idiot known as samiam was just esteemed forum troll Mustang19 back from the dead. He has been hammered.
Were Mustang and Unicorn20 the same guy then? Cause I only proved that samiam was Unicorn20. Not Mustang.
Yes, they were.
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Edit: **** post redacted. My apologies for making it.
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You can call me Holmes, I called it weeks ago (http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-smug.gif)
time to do some opium
I called it months ago!
Although that might have been another altnick, don't know. This guy is persistent..
EDIT: Oh right, that was Unicorn... or was it someone else?
*sigh*.
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if this thread has done anything, at least we know who the dicks are now.
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Also, that maybe we shouldn't sing along to a certain Nirvana song. :nervous:
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General note to Battuta: You seem to bring on the women's rights quite a bit, but consider the medium too. I'm a bit drawn between whether talk about gender equality makes things worse or better - especially when men are pushing women rights. The latest idiocy here was to suggest a lawfully mandated quota of women that should sit in the board of directors in any company - this, though, came from a woman minister. That does not help gender equality. But each country in its own way, there are predators putting stuff in drinks here as well, but how about just getting women drunk? That seems to be a rather accepted method in the bar. I do recall seeing some mentions of women putting some love potion or viagra to the cups of men as well. Should that be accepted then?
Whether this is relevant to topic you need to decide yourself, but I thought I should mention a couple of incidents that happened in real life. I occasionally get comments from women that I'm really different sort of person they are used to (insert the bent fork image here); i.e. nothing works the way they think it would. Due to sports I did, I got somewhat proficient in doing massages - the real massages - and because this was part of the art I was practicing, doing that to both men and women became a second nature (after ten years) so that I really do not think about anything else. Well, cue the girlfriend and her house at twelve o'clock, I usually left for home after doing this massage since she was practicing another art and got sore muscles as well. That wasn't actually well received after a couple of times, I think I was supposed to go further, but since I never saw any signs of approval, I didn't.
I do know a woman in another city at whose house I occasionally overnight. She only has one bed, but again I have just gone there to sleep. Last time I got the feeling she actually wanted something to happen, but since no signs of approval, nothing happens. Some women appear really passive in relationships to me, and I'm probably a sort of person with whom that simply does not work. But it tends to get them angry if I don't take some kind of "Me strong man, me do what me want" -attitude, which I detest.
Then you get the usual bar pick-ups, but this time around it is women trying to pick me up. Most of the time I find it flat out irritating since they are often very drunk, and when irritated, I can get a rather sharp tongue. I recall saying "Why do you think I would find you attractive?" once, which probably crashed the poor woman's self esteem for some time. But irritating is still irritating. I usually don't visit bars much due to the fact I do not get to know women that would interest me there. The surrounding just does not allow for a good casual talk. At least for me, hobbies have been a far more better place to meet people.
There have been several occasions when gays have tried to pick me up too. It is said they are supposed to handle relationships better, I say bull****, they are just like the rest of us. Somebody once squeezed my ass from behind, after which my elbow almost met his nose (this happens in around 0.2 seconds). Instead I stopped the motion, and wished him good evening, but seeing my facial expression probably told him what I was thinking - deducting from the way his expression changed. I did not see that person in the bar after that.
Some of you might recall I have been doing street dancing for something like 15 years. When I do that in a bar, a flock of women tends to surround me there, and occasionally a 18 to 20 year old girl touches my privates while dancing. Well, I don't find women doing that repulsive, but the point is that they do that as well. I don't react to that either. If she wants to talk to me she can do it any time she wants, but that usually does not happen. Not my problem then.
Once I also had a discussion with a girl who was very keen on being open minded, due to her religion. What I found absurd then was that any even slightly sex related topic is immediate a no go if only us were talking. But she did not have any objections on hearing joking about visiting whore houses from the men of her of religious group. She actually seemed to be laughing. Yeah, I haven't seen her after she mentioned that she was doing a feast, and since I have done some amount of chi gong, I immediately asked does the prohibition of all sex for a month change the psyche (mine did - radically). I probably asked a question I shouldn't have asked, but oh well, she was supposed to be from an open minded religion and there should be no harm in asking about that.
Figure out your local boy band - the one teenage girls adore - and go see their concert. Are the girls who get to the backstage really 18? This is a common topic for the bouncers and security, and they seem to have come to a conclusion that as long as both participants want to do it, they don't stop it, despite one of the partners being likely less than 18.
What I want to say with all this is that there are all sorts of people that like or do not like all things, and people learn from what happened in the past. I sort of understand drunken stupidity in the college time since the case is really not really that clear cut to me - these things can easily happen when men misinterprete signals and compare it to the "what happened before" -section. But I draw the line to the point where it becomes planned and systematic like sharing tips on what sort of stuff to put in the cups. Childhood abuse I don't tolerate at all.
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im all for womens right, but when they start acting like men (and not just any men but the total asshole types), instead of women with more rights, then i start to think something is wrong. frankly i see it as just another way to drive a wall between groups of humans. as if skin color, nationality, sexuality, age, and political views were not enough. now we make the biggest division possible, males from females. and so long as humans go on walling themselves off into little groups, they will be a prime target for my warheads.
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Also, that maybe we shouldn't sing along to a certain Nirvana song. :nervous:
Oh, ****! I forgot about that song. :(
Topic over, Rapechat is OK. Nirvana said so.
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nirvana doesn't hold that much weight with me. by the time i heard it in hs it was bubblegum kiddie music to me.
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I just want to point out that 'heh, nice post, i'm still Ayn Rand though' isn't much of a contribution.
Well, it wasn't supposed to be
I couldn't follow much up on that other than my reaction to it
As for being Ayn Rand... not sure if compliment... or insult...
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As for being Ayn Rand... not sure if compliment... or insult...
Being called Ayn Rand is in no way, shape, or form, a compliment.
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EIN VOLK, EIN REICH, AYN RAND
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There is one article involving Ayn Rand that is very much worth reading: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/books/200911/ayn-rand-dick-books-fountainhead?printable=true
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There is one article involving Ayn Rand that is very much worth reading: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/books/200911/ayn-rand-dick-books-fountainhead?printable=true
Honestly, I didn't know who Ayn Rand was
But that still doesn't mean this sarcastic article is any less hilarious
Also, pertaining to the topic at hand:
From the article itself!
Make it go away, he thinks. The metallurgist protagonists. The operatic rapes heralded by whips and rock drills. The pirates with cat-coughing-up-hairball names like Ragnar Danneskjöld. Please, God.
EDIT:
Also, on the subject of trigger effects... If someone was raped, any number of innocuous words, phrases, actions, could trigger the memories and instantly put you in the spotlight. Sure rape beelines it, but it's not like it'll be any different if someone said "John" who turned out to be the name of the person who raped said person. One can never win in those situations unless they already know about it
This response came to me after a large amount of scotch
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While the triggers may be numerous, the word rape is by far the most likely to be a universal one, and removing even a single mine from a ready-made minefield in your vocabulary is nothing but beneficial. Especially since this entire thread is about why using it in the vast majority of contexts that aren't the discussion of the actual act is not a good thing.
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That's a pretty lousy argument. People who are at risk for triggers are capable of empathy. They're going to understand if someone says 'John'. But if you go around saying 'wow I just got raped in Halo' not only are you triggering but you look like someone who doesn't care about what happened to them and doesn't put any thought into being careful about it.
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That's a pretty lousy argument. People who are at risk for triggers are capable of empathy. They're going to understand if someone says 'John'. But if you go around saying 'wow I just got raped in Halo' not only are you triggering but you look like someone who doesn't care about what happened to them and doesn't put any thought into being careful about it.
If I don't know, I don't care. I'm not going to go around assuming everyone has been raped and completely exclude the word in a conversation I'd generally only have with people I played the game with. If someone overhears it, not my problem unless they make it my problem.
And considering the chances are more than likely them overhearing it via the internet... I won't actually have to deal with it
You're also assuming what they're going to think. For all you know, it could be along the same lines of understanding (considering the context) if you simply said John. Hell, John could send them into a frenzy on it's own. Just how rational is someone who's been emotionally and physically broken? Not very.
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Is this a second wind in the discussion, or just a loop back?
Meh! Doesn't matter, this is intresting.
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Unless somebody else responds to his posts I just leave him on ignore, since I assume he's just repeating the same points and probably implying that rape victims are broken toys who can't think or feel correctly. He's already explained that he's committed to being an asshole who doesn't care about others, presumably because he's depressed and lonely.
Discussions about this issue are interesting, but discussing the nuances of being a bad person isn't. After a certain point watching someone dig a hole stops being fun and just starts being a little tragic.
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it just occurred to me that this thread is entirely one sided. seems everyone is trying to discuss the issue from the outside looking in. this discussion needs input from actual rape victims.
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Who says it doesn't already have some?
I doubt anyone who was actually raped would admit it on this thread.
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Definitely. That kind of admission generally leads to 'how', 'who', 'when' - in the best case. Worse case it turns into 'why didn't you', 'you should've', and, maybe, the edge of that nasty omnipresent implication 'you deserved it'.
Not to mention being treated like you're made of glass for the rest of ever.
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those are valid points. i just dont want to create a situation where people decide what is best for a group of people without any input from that group. its like a bunch of white people deciding what is offensive black people, without knowing or consulting any black people. surely such a decision would be found offensive to blacks, even if the white group had a pro civil rights agenda, because they had no say. there was also the thing with victorian era side show freaks. certain organizations wanted to shut down the side shows because they found the displays demeaning to the deformed individuals. of course nobody consulted the freaks on the issue, and for them it was a major source of income, and so they ended up counter protesting the issue. i dont want to create a situation where we deicide how to treat rape survivors, without them having any say in how they want to be treated.
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Not to mention being treated like you're made of glass for the rest of ever.
Isn't that kind of what this whole thread is about, though?
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Not to mention being treated like you're made of glass for the rest of ever.
Isn't that kind of what this whole thread is about, though?
Nope.
e: I guess, if this isn't obvious enough: the fact that people are able to tolerate, shrug off, or even completely not give a **** about an issue does not render the issue immaterial; if black people in America were incredibly thick-skinned about racism (and they are), racism would still be a problem. And the issue here is not simply rape victims' discomfort and pain, it's the entire culture of ignorance, trivialization, and whitewashing that surrounds rape.
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FYI Racism isn't exclusive to blacks
And since I'm already being ignored, I may as well say that when you've already dug yourself so deep, the only option is to continue digging deeper
Also to always go into an argument knowing you're wrong, stupid and insignificant. Makes it much easier
Also, interesting read
I don’t know if rape jokes encourage rape culture. I don’t care. You still shouldn’t tell them.
Statistically, if you have told a rape joke to a group of more than five people, one of the people you told it to was a rape survivor, possibly of multiple rapes. They will not necessarily disclose this to you; rape apologism is endemic in society and most rape survivors are cautious about whom they tell. Some may even be too ashamed of their rape to admit it to anyone, or because of rape-minimizing narratives like “men can’t be raped” and “I consented to oral, so I couldn’t have been raped” may not admit it even to themselves. The fact remains: if you’ve told dozens of rape jokes in your life, then you have almost certainly told a joke that minimizes or trivializes rape in front of a survivor.
And if you put as your Facebook status “I totally raped at Halo today” for your two hundred Facebook friends to see, statistically, you have just reminded thirty-three people of one of the worst experiences of their entire lives.
To describe how well you did at a video game.
Good job!
Sidenote: If I ever do get raped, I'll be sure not to be a hypocrite and continue the same thought process regardless. That's a serious comment about my mentality, not a slash at anyone
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Sidenote: If I ever do get raped, I'll be sure not to be a hypocrite and continue the same thought process regardless. That's a serious comment about my mentality, not a slash at anyone
If you ever did get raped you would never think or talk like that again.
Let's hope you won't. It's not something anyone should wish on anyone else for whatever reason.
It's easy to say that you won't care if bad things happen to you ... if they never happened to you.
That's pure juvenile bravado. A lack of experience. A lack of forethought. A lack of actually having to deal with traumatic experiences or with people who had them.
It's easy to talk brave talk about hypothetical events that you never had to endure. People usually stop that kind of talk after they grow up.
You too will realize at some point that traumatic experiences change people no matter what they want or thought before it happened to them.
Part of that is what makes it so tragic... as when people can not be anymore who they want to be that triggers all sorts of feelings of inadequacy on top of everything else.
Seriously... take a minute to reflect on the stuff you are actually saying.
This is just an incredibly sad display of a lack of understanding and lack of empathy for no discernible reason whatsoever.
This comic isn't about rape, but cancer... but maybe it will make you understand what a traumatic event means to someone who has to live with it: http://xkcd.com/1048/
P.S.: The tragedy surrounding http://xkcd.com/ 's creator and his fiance propably deserves it's own thread.... I've been following his comics for years... and it's just sad to see that happen to them.
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As an off-topic aside, I linked to this thread on Rock Paper Shotgun. The result is another quite interesting discussion[/quote]. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?4551-Conversational-Metaphors-Rape-vs-Other-Bad-Stuff)
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This was an interesting thread until Mikes had to pontificate.
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If you ever did get raped you would never think or talk like that again.
Let's hope you won't. It's not something anyone should wish on anyone else for whatever reason.
It's easy to say that you won't care if bad things happen to you ... if they never happened to you.
That's pure juvenile bravado. A lack of experience. A lack of forethought. A lack of actually having to deal with traumatic experiences or with people who had them.
It's easy to talk brave talk about hypothetical events that you never had to endure. People usually stop that kind of talk after they grow up.
I'm basing hypothetical off of precedence which I don't care to elaborate
That's forethought, and regardless of the outcome, I refuse to allow myself to be a hypocrite in that manner.
By the way Josh, that pretty much is an abbreviation of this entire thread in two pages
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This comic isn't about rape, but cancer... but maybe it will make you understand what a traumatic event means to someone who has to live with it: http://xkcd.com/1048/
That post manages to sum up what pieces of **** we get on the internet in 3 words.
Comments are closed.
In an ideal world, something like that could just be posted and the only thing you'd get would be messages of condolence. Even in the real world you'd probably be safe. On the net, no chance. You're always going to get some juvenile idiot spouting off about something he knows nothing about.
Which is sorta related to the topic at hand.
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This was an interesting thread until Mikes had to pontificate.
There are a very few topics where I am not willing to compromise. Downplaying rape is one of them. Sorry.
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I wonder if anyone has ever noticed that I've never taken the popular side of an argument...
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Hmm, well, the majority isn't always wrong, you know. It's not necessarily always right, it's not even necessarily most often right, however, as they say, even a completely broken clock is right twice a day.
If you always pick the unpopular side of an argument, you will sometimes (*cough* maybe just a bit more often than sometimes) be wrong. I mean, it's one thing to be devil's advocate and look at things from both ends of the spectrum, but it's quite another to stake your claim firmly on the opposing side of an argument.
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I wonder if anyone has ever noticed that I've never taken the popular side of an argument...
you know, that just makes you an antisheep. popularity is independent of the validity of an argument,
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I wonder if anyone has ever noticed that I've never taken the popular side of an argument...
and what good has it done you?
Like you I dont take the popular view just because it's popular, If I take the popular view it is because it is what I believe to be right, the trick is to be open to the other persons view point and accept sometimes they are right and you are wrong and if so to change your position. Sometimes you are right but the other(s) wont change their point of view, in that case stop banging your head against a brick wall and move on.
For example I am about the only person in the circle of friends of neighbours who believes that keeping our troops in Afganistan until the situation is stable to prevent a terror backlash in the future, my friends take the opinion that our troops are dying so must be pulled out. Neither side will convince the other so me leave that one alone.
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What good should it have done?
I take the unpopular side regardless of whether or not I believe in it since it's much more fun
What I actually believe is irrelevant since nobody actually cares for my opinion
Just so long as I can convince you I believe in the side I'm arguing, we're good to go
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arguing for the sake of arguing online, is that not the definition of an internet troll?
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arguing for the sake of arguing online, is that not the definition of an internet troll?
Isn't it more about intent? I mean, I've picked the least popular side of an argument just so that I challenge myself with arguing a case I don't personally agree with and promote healthy debate. Just the other day I was arguing with my college mates and teachers about why we should drop a nasty virus in the middle-east, and take over their oil. Do I agree with it? No, I just found the challenge stimulating and the ensuing debate enjoyable.
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arguing for the sake of arguing online, is that not the definition of an internet troll?
Isn't it more about intent? I mean, I've picked the least popular side of an argument just so that I challenge myself with arguing a case I don't personally agree with and promote healthy debate. Just the other day I was arguing with my college mates and teachers about why we should drop a nasty virus in the middle-east, and take over their oil. Do I agree with it? No, I just found the challenge stimulating and the ensuing debate enjoyable.
What he said
It's also not something I do exclusively online. I do it in real life as well
I'll argue anything
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arguing for the sake of arguing online, is that not the definition of an internet troll?
Isn't it more about intent? I mean, I've picked the least popular side of an argument just so that I challenge myself with arguing a case I don't personally agree with and promote healthy debate. Just the other day I was arguing with my college mates and teachers about why we should drop a nasty virus in the middle-east, and take over their oil. Do I agree with it? No, I just found the challenge stimulating and the ensuing debate enjoyable.
What he said
It's also not something I do exclusively online. I do it in real life as well
I'll argue anything
I suppose the difference is I take an opposing point when not my view when it's called, for example to help someone think an idea through rather than to challenge myself.
So on a subject like this, I agree with the general consensus to the point where I feel arguing against it serves more to inflame rather than help inform.
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I luckily don't have this issue
Being the idiot that is
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What he said
It's also not something I do exclusively online. I do it in real life as well
I'll argue anything
No you wont. :p
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What he said
It's also not something I do exclusively online. I do it in real life as well
I'll argue anything
No you wont. :p
Yes I will :p
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There are a very few topics where I am not willing to compromise. Downplaying rape is one of them. Sorry.
It wasn't a matter of compromise. It was matter of going off into that whole silly digression about "if you get raped".
While certain trends in view are definitely strong after an event like that, you crystal-balling deathfun's response and saying "YOU'LL BE SORRY YOU EVER HAD THIS THREAD" is probably one of the least-helpful, least-intelligent, and least-interesting things in this thread. There's a good reason nobody else chimed in for that bit.
(It's because it was dumb and unless you yourself are a rape victim you had no business going there. Even if you are, you would hopefully be wiser than to go with the "hurr I scaer you hurr you'll be sory" methodology. No human being over the age of seven has ever been convinced by it. One might as well have a conversation with someone who goes to church and tell them "you're a sinner, you should stop".)
(sorry headdie)
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What I'm seeing from deathfun is typical behavior. This is a classic part of the cycle in pedophilia callouts (not that I think he's a pedophile, but it's a similar mechanism at work). The accused first argues against the terms of the accusation, then, once they realize that everybody believes they're an awful human being, falls back on what's termed the puppetmaster defense: i just did it to start arguments/troll/run an experiment. dance, puppets, dance
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I just read all 15 pages of this thread, and then did something different. I ran a few errands before replying. This gave me the time that I needed to digest everything that I had just read.
Those who know me know about my involvement in Special Olympics. They know that my daughter is is mentally and physically retarded. I didn't say "handicapped", I didn't say "has special needs", I used the word "retarded". I despise that word. I understand that it is my personal feeling and as such has no bearing on any fact about the evolution of the English language. Why do I hate it? Because it used to mean something. Now it has been thrown around in so many ways that it has entirely lost its meaning, and has been replaced by other words used to convey the meaning. I take absolute offense when that word is used lightly. That word describes a child who had a stroke at birth, a child that has survived numerous brain surgeries, and a child that has been heart dead no less than 5 times on an operating table.
Do I take offense when that word is used lightly? You're damn right I do. When you use that word lightly you make light of the plight of people who can't possibly fight back against you, mentally or physically. As far as I have seen, and I will admit freely that my perception may be clouded by own feelings, people use that word to convey a sense of superiority. It would be laughable if not so tragic to see someone with such a need to feel superior to something that they have to make a comparison to a person who doesn't have the mental faculties to tell time at age 14, let alone understand advanced concepts such as moral duty.
On the other hand, my dealing with these kids has shown me that they have more heart than 90% of the "normal" people that I have met, so really, who should be learning from who?
Rape.
Another disgusting word for pretty much the same reasons as "retard." Until you've been through the multiple suicide attempts, the need to punish ones self for what was done to them, the pure self destruction.....you don't know ****. Spend years with someone you care about and can't touch, not days or weeks, years. Years spent waiting for some sign that they are becoming a rape survivor, and not a victim, only to have another suicide attempt. Then tell me that you are unchanged. You tell me then how it's ok to use that word lightly. Nuke you know exactly what I am talking about and I applaud you for your candor on the matter.
I am going to keep my list very short here and just some personal highlights of the people in this thread:
Batts: We've been sorting of butting heads a bit lately, and reading your posts I began losing some respect for you. It was my fault for not reading the threads that you were referencing, a mistake I won't make again. Thank you for showing me that I was right in my original assessment of you.
Trashman: This may be unfair since you can't reply, but I ain't exactly feeling the love right now. I cannot respect the work of someone that I cannot respect. I know it won't bother you at all, but reading this, I have found myself at an utter and complete loss of respect for you, and as such, I now have to change a good number of the models that I use in CoW. I know it seems trivial, but I refuse to use your work, let alone showcase it as the main models, and I hope to hell no one else uses them. A fitting end for you at HLP would be that none of your work gets used.
deathfun: I don't know you. That said, taking a contrary stance simply to take a contrary stance is immature at best, more commonly asinine. Don't bother replying, you are already on ignore.
Finally, a thread on this board that was (for the most part) worth following. Thank you to all who contributed to the thread itself, and not yourselves.
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I think criminal offenses should not be made taboo since that hinders society's defend against them. Banning the casual, figurative use of a word just because it makes some feel uneasy is uncalled for since it leads to making the whole topic a taboo. People who are assaulted are often so overtaken by fear that they become paralyzed and incapable of defending themselves. This fear is caused by society's irrational stance on the issue.
A story recently made the news in my country. It was about a young elementary schoolgirl who successfully incapacitated a pedophile who attacked her classmate. She delivered a powerful kick to the groin because thats what her parents taught her to do in that situation. Not only did she save her friend but the culprit was also apprehended by the female staff of the school.
For me this example shows how the issue of rape should be treated, seriously but without the overlying fear and paranoia. A healthy stance to the subject made the girl's parents teach her how to defend herself and helped her keep her resolve when the moment came. The result was one less traumatized victim and one less offender free from jail.
I realize this thread started on the topic of using the word in nerdy banter. I agree with the statement that such dirty-talk and low humor should not be shown to the outside as a staple of our community.
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I think criminal offenses should not be made taboo since that hinders society's defend against them. Banning the casual, figurative use of a word just because it makes some feel uneasy is uncalled for since it leads to making the whole topic a taboo.
Who suggested the word be banned?
I realize this thread started on the topic of using the word in nerdy banter. I agree with the statement that such dirty-talk and low humor should not be shown to the outside as a staple of our community.
Right, I can get behind that.
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I think criminal offenses should not be made taboo since that hinders society's defend against them. Banning the casual, figurative use of a word just because it makes some feel uneasy is uncalled for since it leads to making the whole topic a taboo.
This isn't about banning anything. This is about raising awareness that what you may see as normal, day-to-day language may have connotations that you haven't thought of (especially when said language is filtered through the great decontextualization machine that is the internet), thus coloring other people's perceptions of you in ways you may not want.
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Who suggested the word be banned?
Many people compared the word to "gay", "retard" or "Jew" in that figurative use of it should be condemned.
I think criminal offenses should not be made taboo since that hinders society's defend against them. Banning the casual, figurative use of a word just because it makes some feel uneasy is uncalled for since it leads to making the whole topic a taboo.
This isn't about banning anything. This is about raising awareness that what you may see as normal, day-to-day language may have connotations that you haven't thought of (especially when said language is filtered through the great decontextualization machine that is the internet), thus coloring other people's perceptions of you in ways you may not want.
OK I concede. It is a bit far-fetched to connote the uneasiness caused by usage of a word in internet context to with the social paranoia surrounding the topic.
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I don't think it should be banned, I think that people should police themselves in its use. I also think that some people need to grow up and actually think, but since that won't happen, i see little hope for the former.
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Who suggested the word be banned?
Many people compared the word to "gay", "retard" or "Jew" in that figurative use of it should be condemned.
I do think it should be condemned when it's used as a casual insult, just like these other words. But social sanction against its use isn't the same as legal action against its use.
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What I'm seeing from deathfun is typical behavior. This is a classic part of the cycle in pedophilia callouts (not that I think he's a pedophile, but it's a similar mechanism at work). The accused first argues against the terms of the accusation, then, once they realize that everybody believes they're an awful human being, falls back on what's termed the puppetmaster defense: i just did it to start arguments/troll/run an experiment. dance, puppets, dance
Oh you know me so well
And yet fail to notice that I've
A) Said the opposing argument is right and I'm wrong on several occasions (see our previous argument of whether or not FreeSpace would make a good TV show, FreeSpace being able to be playable on console and being able to be binded to a controller)
B) Admitted to being stupid, ignorant, and have no idea what I'm talking about (see previous posts in this thread)
C) Continue to argue anyhow
I've never been right, and I doubt I ever will
Won't stop me from arguing pointlessly for personal amusement
That, and I didn't start the argument (being one of your options) and nor do I troll. I entered one, chose a side, defended it poorly (as per usual), came to yet another conclusion of being in the wrong, etc etc
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There are a very few topics where I am not willing to compromise. Downplaying rape is one of them. Sorry.
It wasn't a matter of compromise. It was matter of going off into that whole silly digression about "if you get raped".
While certain trends in view are definitely strong after an event like that, you crystal-balling deathfun's response and saying "YOU'LL BE SORRY YOU EVER HAD THIS THREAD" is probably one of the least-helpful, least-intelligent, and least-interesting things in this thread. There's a good reason nobody else chimed in for that bit.
(It's because it was dumb and unless you yourself are a rape victim you had no business going there. Even if you are, you would hopefully be wiser than to go with the "hurr I scaer you hurr you'll be sory" methodology. No human being over the age of seven has ever been convinced by it. One might as well have a conversation with someone who goes to church and tell them "you're a sinner, you should stop".)
Saying "If i get raped I won't change at all" is obviously a quite idiotic thing to say. I do believe people need to called out on stuff like that.
I don't know where you get all the hate in your post or how you read the "you'll be sorry you ever had that thread" notion in mine... but do you really want to tell people to ignore such idiotic comments about rape? That's what causes part of the problems surrounding rape in the first place. Not calling people out when they downplay rape and it's consequences. Ignoring all that "silly talk". Letting it slide because they just don't know better.
What I'm seeing from deathfun is typical behavior. This is a classic part of the cycle in pedophilia callouts (not that I think he's a pedophile, but it's a similar mechanism at work). The accused first argues against the terms of the accusation, then, once they realize that everybody believes they're an awful human being, falls back on what's termed the puppetmaster defense: i just did it to start arguments/troll/run an experiment. dance, puppets, dance
Oh you know me so well
And yet fail to notice that I've
A) Said the opposing argument is right and I'm wrong on several occasions (see our previous argument of whether or not FreeSpace would make a good TV show, FreeSpace being able to be playable on console and being able to be binded to a controller)
B) Admitted to being stupid, ignorant, and have no idea what I'm talking about (see previous posts in this thread)
C) Continue to argue anyhow
I've never been right, and I doubt I ever will
Won't stop me from arguing pointlessly for personal amusement
That, and I didn't start the argument (being one of your options) and nor do I troll. I entered one, chose a side, defended it poorly (as per usual), came to yet another conclusion of being in the wrong, etc etc
Deathfun, the issue is more that, by defending the lighthearted use of the word "rape", you make yourself a part of the problems that surround actual rape.
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Getting raped would benefit me more regardless
Instead of being seen as the lonely depressed tool who ended up jumping off the bridge, I'd have a dignified reason
This isn't supposed to help my position
This is me digging even deeper
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deathfun, knock it off. Getting all depressed doesn't solve anything. If you aren't happy with yourself, well, change. It's not easy, but I would say that how you think plays a major part in how you are. How to change how you think? GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out.. so take out the trash, surround yourself with friends and acquaintances who are a positive influence and who you would like to become more similar to. You can't change the past, but you can definitely alter the future. You can't control everything, but you can definitely control your slice of the pie, so to speak.
Now, if there are circumstances beyond your control, well, be patient, bide your time... but when the time comes, change. (I'm speaking if you are in a situation where people are a bad influence, and you can't help it: they are your parent(s), or teacher(s), or everyone in your school. Although even in that situation you can still attempt to be a positive influence, do your part.)
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It was dark humour...
Edit: @Kaj below me: Legitimate discussion of the topic I've found to have actually ended several pages ago
Everything I've said from that point hasn't been much more than a town drunk babbling
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Getting raped would benefit me more regardless
Instead of being seen as the lonely depressed tool who ended up jumping off the bridge, I'd have a dignified reason
This isn't supposed to help my position
This is me digging even deeper
You do realise that at this point that you're not digging anything cause we all realised a while back that you're basically attention whoring rather than actually discussing anything, right?
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Everything I've said from that point hasn't been much more than a town drunk babbling
Enjoy your day off.
inb4 complaints: It's just dark humour. Moderator style.
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Well the police throw the town drunk in the cells to let him cool off all the time.
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16 pages. jesus christ.
i'm almost tempted to actually read it all now. almost.
it took me a long time to commit to posting this, but i'd just like to submit the outsider's point of view that EVERYONE participating at this point has crossed over the ridiculous line. if nuke hasn't already done so, i'm slapping the stamp of wank on this one. for what it's worth.
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Why? Nuke thinks it's a good thread, it's been a productive discussion. There hasn't even really been an argument.
The worst part about this thread has been people coming in who haven't read the thread and assuming it's a flamewar.
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for what it's worth.
Absolutely nothing, since that proves you haven't got a clue what's happening.
Saying "If i get raped I won't change at all" is obviously a quite idiotic thing to say. I do believe people need to called out on stuff like that.
It is a grand pity that's not what he said, then, yes? He said "I will still hold my opinions" not "I won't change". Changing behavior is inevitable, perhaps, but humans can be remarkably stubborn in holding on to their stupid ideas.
It's a also a pity you feel the need to backpeddle so fast you're tripping over yourself. I didn't find hate in your post, just stupid argumentation. (Although responding to someone by calling them juvenile and inexperienced could be considered hateful.) I find no fault with your goals, but your goals are negated by your methods; "if this happens to you", "someday you'll learn that", etc.
As I said, what you did was as wise as walking up to a churchgoer and telling them they are a sinner. It was as smart as telling a teenager not to have sex and then recounting the terrible fate that will befall them if they catch AIDS. It was as useful as a gore-filled video about drunk driving shown in a driver's ed class. It was as effective as stressing the importance of not having traditional sex to a class of highschoolers while not talking about all the other fun things two people can do.
In other words it was probably true insofar as it went, and yet due to its presentation it accomplished nothing positive, had no impact on the person it was presented to, and probably inspired a backlash in them and any bystanders. It was remarkably crass and insensitive in its own special way, both to rape victims whose traumas you are invoking against deathfun, and to deathfun himself; it engages with him on the level of a seven-year-old threatened with a spanking, which I'm pretty sure he's not. It attempts to intimidate him into changing his viewpoint with a long list of bad things, rather than appealing to rationality or even really emotion.
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It is a grand pity that's not what he said, then, yes? He said "I will still hold my opinions" not "I won't change". Changing behavior is inevitable, perhaps, but humans can be remarkably stubborn in holding on to their stupid ideas.
Don't split hairs over semantics. He referred to his use of the word rape and so did I.
It's a also a pity you feel the need to backpeddle so fast you're tripping over yourself. I didn't find hate in your post, just stupid argumentation. (Although responding to someone by calling them juvenile and inexperienced could be considered hateful.) I find no fault with your goals, but your goals are negated by your methods; "if this happens to you", "someday you'll learn that", etc.
As I said, what you did was as wise as walking up to a churchgoer and telling them they are a sinner. It was as smart as telling a teenager not to have sex and then recounting the terrible fate that will befall them if they catch AIDS. It was as useful as a gore-filled video about drunk driving shown in a driver's ed class. It was as effective as stressing the importance of not having traditional sex to a class of highschoolers while not talking about all the other fun things two people can do.
Whatever backpedaling there is must be happening in your vivid imagination which also brings up those ridiculous comparisons.
We are not talking about having sex. We are not talking about drinking. We are talking about the thoughtless use of a word.
Don't be ridiculous and pretend that activities that have clear needs and motivations attached to them are in any way or form comparable to using or not using single words.
The whole point is that to the person who uses the word it isn't a big deal. If people who surround them would make it a big deal ... that behavior will stop rather quickly.
You know... I actually do have experience in dealing with kids of the age 14-20. As far as appropriate vocabulary in social settings is concerned it really is that easy: You overhear/ignore things... and things get worse.
You call people out when they use obscenities ... and it stops. There are always people who are aggravated by the use of bad language, but few of them speak up "first". Once *someone* speaks up however, it's usually the potty mouths who quickly find themselves a minority among their peers.
In other news... in case you haven't noticed, the thread is over and Deathfun has turned out a self proclaimed first rate troll.
So if you do have all the answers... then what would you say to person who trolls about the word "rape" for fun? Enlighten me. Show us how it's done.
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Deathfun has turned out a self proclaimed first rate troll.
Meh. 2 out of 10.
Enlighten me. Show us how it's done.
I invite you to read the thread again. It, in its entirety, constitutes your answer.
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the thread is over
Thanks for letting us know. I'm still finding it quite informative.
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16 pages. jesus christ.
i'm almost tempted to actually read it all now. almost.
it took me a long time to commit to posting this, but i'd just like to submit the outsider's point of view that EVERYONE participating at this point has crossed over the ridiculous line. if nuke hasn't already done so, i'm slapping the stamp of wank on this one. for what it's worth.
i wouldnt really call it wanky, i reserve the stamp for when people are more interested in winning a debate than understanding the issue. though i must admit the last few pages have been a game of whack-a-troll.
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Ah, we're back on the downward spiral. Well, the civilized and intelligent discussions were enjoyable and informative at least.
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Fastest way to get on the downward spiral is for people to start posting about it.
Next post better be on topic and about the actual subject matter rather than some stupid meta-discussion.
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I'd just like to say that this has been one of the greatest examples of why I love this forum. From the majority of posters, I saw clarity, reason, logic, emotion, excellent grammar, all the good stuff.
Even though they were annoying, I doubt that we would have seen as much good stuff if it weren't for Trashman and deathfun taking the other side of the argument; it drew out all the impassioned writing.
I wanted to chime in earlier, but I was sure that there wasn't anything I could say that hadn't already been said, and better.
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I think that in the end the casual use of certain words desensitizes us to the true horror of the act. In much the same way that we've been desensitizes to the horrors of violence through a number of media.
I was going to elaborate, but but that sums it up.
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OH right. Trashman can apperently not reply in Gen. Disc. Sorry about that - It is rather unwise to quote a post and then reply to it 6 pages later, but i just wanted to make my points.
EDIT: I recall that someone mentioned that we had "lost a member" due to the careless atitude displayed towards women... who was that? -Sara-?
I think that was Rian.
As for me, I'm well. :yes: But I'm taking a big step back from gaming and online communities. I'll be 26 this year and I really want to finish college, earn a little to get myself a nice place to call home, maybe get involved in a serious relationship, who knows! I know too many guys and girls past the age of 30 who spend all day on forums and facebook, either working at a 7-11 store or living of benefits. I'm not going to be like that.
I'll be around, just not that often. :)
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OH right. Trashman can apperently not reply in Gen. Disc. Sorry about that - It is rather unwise to quote a post and then reply to it 6 pages later, but i just wanted to make my points.
EDIT: I recall that someone mentioned that we had "lost a member" due to the careless atitude displayed towards women... who was that? -Sara-?
I think that was Rian.
As for me, I'm well. :yes: But I'm taking a big step back from gaming and online communities. I'll be 26 this year and I really want to finish college, earn a little to get myself a nice place to call home, maybe get involved in a serious relationship, who knows! I know too many guys and girls past the age of 30 who spend all day on forums and facebook, either working at a 7-11 store or living of benefits. I'm not going to be like that.
I'll be around, just not that often. :)
Good luck to you
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Incidentally, I keep seeing this ad when I come here. :p
[attachment deleted by a ninja]
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Incidentally, I keep seeing this ad when I come here. :p
Unfortunately I lost my crystal ball, so it's tarot cards or nothing. :P
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Does that ad mean that love is free but work requires psychic reading? :confused:
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It means that Sara loves working on Fred 2, the Freespace editor.
Edit: Because 'Sara loves working on Fred' sounded completely wrong for some reason :nervous:
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Edit: Because 'Sara loves working on Fred' sounded completely wrong for some reason :nervous:
Agreed.