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Take the discussions of the merits of religion to PMs - KwarK |
On January 28 2012 02:42 zalz wrote:Someone else already said it. Rape is more about domination then simple lust. We approach the mind of a rapist from a normal persons mind. Who would you rape? Well if I had to rape someone, obviously the prettiest girl.
That's just not how these people think.
The "rape is about power" bullshit comes from feminist ideology and is not supported by criminological/sociological research.
Criminological studies suggest that like every other crime, the motivations for rape are multifaceted. There is significant research which shows that most male rapists do not prefer rape over consensual sex, and while male rapists have been shown to be more aroused by forced sex than a typical male, they are still more strongly aroused by consensual sex. There's also a strong correlation between the rise of widely available porn, and a decrease in sexual violence, which utterly contradicts the feminist idea of "Porn is the theory; rape is the practice."
The notion of "rape is about patriarchy and is an attempt to maintain power over women" is based on feminist theorycrafting rather than empirical data. In general, males don't use sex to get/maintain social status and social power; they use social status and social power over others to get sex. When it comes to humans (and to a limited degree, some of our primate cousins), it's females that are the ones to use sex in order to gain social power/status. The mistake made by feminist thinkers was projecting female motivations for sex onto males.
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On January 27 2012 22:51 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2012 22:12 vetinari wrote:On January 27 2012 21:50 Haemonculus wrote:
No one is raped because they are perceived to be slutty. Someone gets raped because another person makes the conscious decision to rape them. When you start talking about how it would have been prevented had the victim taken certain precautions, you shift the blame to them.
If I mug you because I think you look rich, I'm still making a conscious decision to commit a crime against you. No one's going to start "well why didn't you dress like a bum so you looked less mugging-worthy?" lines, which would imply that you are somewhat responsible for a crime committed against you by another.
And yes it's true that the vast majority of rapes are committed by people the victim is acquainted with. However I don't think marital rape is the most common subsection of that. No one has their car stolen because they leave the keys in the ignition. Someone has their car stolen because another person makes the conscious decision to steal their car. When you start talking about how it would have been prevented had the victim taken certain precautions, you shift the blame to them. Have I got that right? This is a very touchy subject for one simple reason. Juries are fucking stupid. For decades lawyers have used the "well she was clearly asking for it" defence to get people who don't even deny rape acquitted. It is the duty of the lawyer to do whatever they can for their client but it's a bullshit argument and holds absolutely no water. But juries are stupid and they accept it and countless rape victims have to sit there in court and listen to their peers conclude that the horrific crime that was inflicted upon them was not because the guy who did it to them was a criminal but was as a result of their actions. People are wrong to say that there aren't things you can do to lower the chance of getting raped. However they are very much in the right to get pissed off whenever people use that argument. That argument has been twisted to justify countless atrocities against women and whenever it is repeated in any form it reinforces the idea that the blame doesn't lie solely with the rapist.
Its mostly to do with the fact that to get a rape conviction, you need the actus reus, that is, the sex without consent, and the mens rea, that is, the rapist must know that he is raping the victim.
Because there is often very little physical evidence that can point unequivocally towards a rape, it comes down to convincing the jury, beyond reasonable doubt, that the woman had in fact not given consent and that the defendant knew this. Which is why things like sexual history were taken into account: the jury had to determine whether the accused rapist had reasonable cause to believe that the woman had given consent. It is not enough for a woman to merely say in court, "I told him no", because women can and do lie about being raped (feeling guilty, revenge, shame), or, in the case of inebriation, may not remember giving consent.
This is also why the conviction rate per reported rape is so low: there is not enough evidence in most cases to convince a jury that the mens rea existed, so the police don't bother to take it to trial. Of those cases that make it to trial, a rape trial is far more likely to get a conviction than a murder trial.
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Northern Ireland23745 Posts
On January 28 2012 01:03 Haemonculus wrote:
I'm absolutely aware of that. The conviction rate and the rate at which rapes are often not reported are horridly depressing. Which is why it's so important to talk about and debunk the faulty logic behind those numbers.
It's a cyclical problem . People get away with rape in court because of the "she was asking for it" defense. Then we, as greater society, go home and talk on the internet about maybe there's some merit to her outfit causing rape. We all talk about it, and hear about it on the media, and it starts to become generally accepted.
Then someone gets raped, and the defense uses the "she was asking for it" routine. It's become way too acceptable, and discussions such as this in which people do seem to support the notion that the victim's outfit is somehow an important factor are part of the problem.
The 'she was asking for it' defence is obscene, and thankfully seems to be an attitude that is less widely held than it was before. At least I should bloody-well hope so!
On the other hand, take a recent case over here. It was an anti-rape campaign, aimed at students (both male and female). For the women, some of the advice was to paraphrase 'don't over-drink, try to stay with friends'. Apparently, this was grievously offensive to the more feminist inclined thinkers who pressured our Student's Union so much that (if I recall correctly) a lot of the posters were taken down
This is a great example of taking feminist invective and using it in a ridiculous manner. Alcohol is a dangerous drug, that makes people much more vunerable to all manner of harm than they otherwise would be. To promote moderation in drinking is NOT victim-blaming in the same way that saying 'oh well she dressed like a slut' is.
One girl told me I was actively condoning rape with my stance on this particular point though, which was nice to hear. 'Oh you wouldn't say that if you knew a rape victim.' I do actually, and she was raped on a night out after drinking a lot and essentially blacking out, but I try not to use emotive stories to bolster my arguments as I don't feel comfortable doing such a thing.
Rape has become an issue that cannot be debated sensibly anymore, which is a shame. Many of the statistics I have seen are worthless, because of the difficulties in obtaining them, and a lot of material I've seen on this issue is basing itself on small sample sizes and extrapolating to find nation-wide trends.
Would be grateful actually if anybody could PM me some actual useful, reliable data to have a look at.
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On January 28 2012 07:56 vetinari wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2012 22:51 KwarK wrote:On January 27 2012 22:12 vetinari wrote:On January 27 2012 21:50 Haemonculus wrote:
No one is raped because they are perceived to be slutty. Someone gets raped because another person makes the conscious decision to rape them. When you start talking about how it would have been prevented had the victim taken certain precautions, you shift the blame to them.
If I mug you because I think you look rich, I'm still making a conscious decision to commit a crime against you. No one's going to start "well why didn't you dress like a bum so you looked less mugging-worthy?" lines, which would imply that you are somewhat responsible for a crime committed against you by another.
And yes it's true that the vast majority of rapes are committed by people the victim is acquainted with. However I don't think marital rape is the most common subsection of that. No one has their car stolen because they leave the keys in the ignition. Someone has their car stolen because another person makes the conscious decision to steal their car. When you start talking about how it would have been prevented had the victim taken certain precautions, you shift the blame to them. Have I got that right? This is a very touchy subject for one simple reason. Juries are fucking stupid. For decades lawyers have used the "well she was clearly asking for it" defence to get people who don't even deny rape acquitted. It is the duty of the lawyer to do whatever they can for their client but it's a bullshit argument and holds absolutely no water. But juries are stupid and they accept it and countless rape victims have to sit there in court and listen to their peers conclude that the horrific crime that was inflicted upon them was not because the guy who did it to them was a criminal but was as a result of their actions. People are wrong to say that there aren't things you can do to lower the chance of getting raped. However they are very much in the right to get pissed off whenever people use that argument. That argument has been twisted to justify countless atrocities against women and whenever it is repeated in any form it reinforces the idea that the blame doesn't lie solely with the rapist. Its mostly to do with the fact that to get a rape conviction, you need the actus reus, that is, the sex without consent, and the mens rea, that is, the rapist must know that he is raping the victim. Because there is often very little physical evidence that can point unequivocally towards a rape, it comes down to convincing the jury, beyond reasonable doubt, that the woman had in fact not given consent and that the defendant knew this. Which is why things like sexual history were taken into account: the jury had to determine whether the accused rapist had reasonable cause to believe that the woman had given consent. It is not enough for a woman to merely say in court, "I told him no", because women can and do lie about being raped (feeling guilty, revenge, shame), or, in the case of inebriation, may not remember giving consent. This is also why the conviction rate per reported rape is so low: there is not enough evidence in most cases to convince a jury that the mens rea existed, so the police don't bother to take it to trial. Of those cases that make it to trial, a rape trial is far more likely to get a conviction than a murder trial.
I think his point was also that juries of ones peers are a bad idea for deciding judicial matters in general. In this particular case they are often too willing to consider "she was asking for it".
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On January 28 2012 00:00 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2012 23:42 Haemonculus wrote:
Ehh... you could argue that there are things someone can do to prevent assault, sure. It just seems incredibly arbitrary. Most convicted rapists can't even remember what their victim was wearing. Many rapes also happen inside the home, in which case it's unlikely she was really dressing "provocatively" or whatnot.
You could argue "she might not have been raped if she hadn't been wearing that skirt." Alright, well in that case, we could also argue that she very likely wouldn't have been raped if she'd just stayed home that night. Or if she never left the house without a guard, or a weapon. Where do we draw the line of "you should have done X to protect yourself?" In every case, arguing over what could have been done *by* the victim to prevent/deter a crime, you are blaming the victim, and ignoring the fact that another person made the conscious decision to assault them.
As for your car analogy, what the fuck? What does it say about our culture/society in general if "it looked easy" or "I thought I could get away with it" is seen as a valid or excusable motive for a crime? I have the right to property but that doesn't mean I should expect that right to be held as sacrosanct by other people because many people are dicks. Likewise women have the right to not be raped but that doesn't mean they should act like there aren't any rapists in the world. Nobody has any problem telling children not to go off with strangers at the same time nobody blames the children who do get abducted. On the other end of the spectrum if someone I knew decided to go out by himself and get really drunk and then woke up in the morning with no wallet I'd have little sympathy for him, regardless of his rights. Both had their rights violated and neither is to blame for it but the world is a shitty place, you accept that being morally in the right does not stop wrong being done to you and you try and limit that. Girls on a night out should, for their own safety, follow a few guidelines such as not accepting drinks from strangers. Failure to follow these is exhibiting the same naivity as a child accepting sweets from a stranger, we shouldn't blame them for the crime any more than we'd blame the child but we can recognise that they've taken insufficient precautions. Returning to my original point, the problem is juries. They don't understand that when someone gambles with their ability to prevent an evil act from being done to them that does not mean they cause the evil. Juries buy it so lawyers use it so rapists get away with it and feminists get pissed off with it and then random police officers giving people good advice get in trouble.
This exactly.
I'd be a fool to walk down a dark back alley at 3 am in a bad neighborhood where gang members hang out with a 2000 dollar Rolex and jewelry etc. That doesn't validate the actions of those who beat and rob me. Nor does it follow that I was asking for it. But, simply, I bear some responsibility for what has happened to me. Whether you're a man or a woman, you are responsible for your actions and the decisions you make.
There are certain people who use a horrible crime (that has implications for both sexes by the way) like rape as a pretext for female empowerment by espousing the notion that women should feel empowered to freely and almost defiantly express themselves however they choose. In theory it sounds right, but in reality it really is an infantile, irresponsible, and damaging thing to teach young girls, because it's too idealistic and doesn't speak to the limitations that exist in our society. When I'm a father I'll be sure to talk to my daughter about it very carefully.
I used to find nightclubs interesting, countless sociological experiments on display free to view. Among them a notable difference in the way guys and girls behave. Guys are often very careful about what they say, who they talk to, and apologizing should they accidentally bump into someone. There's an understanding that, however ridiculous it may be, they may have to answer for it if they end up offending someone. Some Girls often show up sober, expect to leave drunk, and get in free after bypassing the lineup. They'll "cocktease" for drinks. Mouth off if it doesn't work. I've seen girls in bars throw drinks in guys faces (perhaps justifiably) then turn around and dance like they've done nothing the least bit provocative. It's a privileged mindset. One that's probably been told it deserves to do what it wants sans consequences. Not one that is particularly considering the potential outcomes of irreverent actions.
On January 28 2012 12:27 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2012 01:03 Haemonculus wrote:
I'm absolutely aware of that. The conviction rate and the rate at which rapes are often not reported are horridly depressing. Which is why it's so important to talk about and debunk the faulty logic behind those numbers.
It's a cyclical problem . People get away with rape in court because of the "she was asking for it" defense. Then we, as greater society, go home and talk on the internet about maybe there's some merit to her outfit causing rape. We all talk about it, and hear about it on the media, and it starts to become generally accepted.
Then someone gets raped, and the defense uses the "she was asking for it" routine. It's become way too acceptable, and discussions such as this in which people do seem to support the notion that the victim's outfit is somehow an important factor are part of the problem. On the other hand, take a recent case over here. It was an anti-rape campaign, aimed at students (both male and female). For the women, some of the advice was to paraphrase 'don't over-drink, try to stay with friends'. Apparently, this was grievously offensive to the more feminist inclined thinkers who pressured our Student's Union so much that (if I recall correctly) a lot of the posters were taken down
Yeah, this is a problematic and irresponsible mindset. The message is to take responsibility and be careful about what's going on around you, but it's erroneously interpreted to mean "if you get raped it's your fault."
In terms of implications for the legal system, it isn't so black and white. Women have lied about rape in the past. That doesn't mean we should ever assume a woman of lying when she makes that accusation, but the guy has the right to defend himself against those accusations too. And he is innocent until proven otherwise. Is it a perfect system? Nope.
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If we assume that someone is innocent until proven guilty, we must assume that the accuser is lying or mistaken until proven otherwise.
If, on the other hand, we assume that the accuser is telling the truth, it logically follows that the defendant is guilty until proven innocent.
Since, the assumption that the accuser is lying or mistaken is hurtful to women's feelings, when it comes to any crime or misdemeanor were the accused is male and the accuser is female, we assume the man to be guilty and even acquittal does not change the verdict that has been given in the court of public opinion.
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On January 28 2012 07:23 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2012 02:42 zalz wrote:Someone else already said it. Rape is more about domination then simple lust. We approach the mind of a rapist from a normal persons mind. Who would you rape? Well if I had to rape someone, obviously the prettiest girl.
That's just not how these people think. The "rape is about power" bullshit comes from feminist ideology and is not supported by criminological/sociological research. Criminological studies suggest that like every other crime, the motivations for rape are multifaceted. There is significant research which shows that most male rapists do not prefer rape over consensual sex, and while male rapists have been shown to be more aroused by forced sex than a typical male, they are still more strongly aroused by consensual sex. There's also a strong correlation between the rise of widely available porn, and a decrease in sexual violence, which utterly contradicts the feminist idea of "Porn is the theory; rape is the practice." The notion of "rape is about patriarchy and is an attempt to maintain power over women" is based on feminist theorycrafting rather than empirical data. In general, males don't use sex to get/maintain social status and social power; they use social status and social power over others to get sex. When it comes to humans (and to a limited degree, some of our primate cousins), it's females that are the ones to use sex in order to gain social power/status. The mistake made by feminist thinkers was projecting female motivations for sex onto males.
And a plethora of research and data will disagree with your notions of what rape is really about. To label it all as feminist bullshit is just silly.
Libyan women being raped as spoils of Shariah law
Violence Against Women: War's overlooked Victims
Guess you haven't heard of Wartime rape.
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Rape is about sex and on a subconscious level, pregnancy.
The point of war is to fuck women, whether it be foreign women who are raped after their menfolk are killed, or domestic women who give up their vaginas to the vanquishing heroes/heroic defenders.
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What about male circumcision in the US?
But it's cultural
It has benefits
It makes the thing look better
I know this case is much worse, but it's kind of the same thing.
If all ppl, including newborns and women had absolute freedom, we wouldn't have these problems.
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On January 31 2012 15:02 vetinari wrote:
Rape is about sex and on a subconscious level, pregnancy.
The point of war is to fuck women, whether it be foreign women who are raped after their menfolk are killed, or domestic women who give up their vaginas to the vanquishing heroes/heroic defenders.
To come to the original point: how does dressing modestly help women in this case anyway? If anything, it makes them a more precious target even by your weird logic.
The notion that rapists somehow want to punish women that are not following traditional dress codes stems from these traditions themselves, and so can only serve as motivation to abolish them.
Even if dressing a certain way would be a factor in the motivations for rape - which no one showed any statistical evidence for, despite all the drivel this thread produced on the subject - it is a minor one and that does not justify telling women to limit their freedom and does most certainly NOT justify speaking of mitigating circumstances for the offender.
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On January 31 2012 15:53 Maenander wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 15:02 vetinari wrote:
Rape is about sex and on a subconscious level, pregnancy.
The point of war is to fuck women, whether it be foreign women who are raped after their menfolk are killed, or domestic women who give up their vaginas to the vanquishing heroes/heroic defenders.
To come to the original point: how does dressing modestly help women in this case anyway? If anything, it makes them a more precious target even by your weird logic. The notion that rapists somehow want to punish women that are not following traditional dress codes stems from these traditions themselves, and so can only serve as motivation to abolish them. Even if dressing a certain way would be a factor in the motivations for rape - which no one showed any statistical evidence for, despite all the drivel this thread produced on the subject - it is a minor one and that does not justify telling women to limit their freedom and does most certainly NOT justify speaking of mitigating circumstances for the offender.
Since your post is a strawman, I will ignore it and explain to you my weird logic:
The purpose of life is to pass on our genes. Our bodies, instincts, mental processes and memes have been shaped by evolution to achieve this end.
The other purpose of life is to pass on our memes. Our bodies, instincts, mental processes and genes have been shaped by evolution to achieve this end.
Human nature is not subject to the human will, since there is no such thing as free will anyway. We are just biological machines, programmed to pass on our genes and memes.
There is competition, between gene and gene, gene and meme, and meme and meme to survive and propagate themselves, and humans are the pawns of the chess game of life.
I think that covers it.
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On January 31 2012 17:08 vetinari wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 15:53 Maenander wrote:On January 31 2012 15:02 vetinari wrote:
Rape is about sex and on a subconscious level, pregnancy.
The point of war is to fuck women, whether it be foreign women who are raped after their menfolk are killed, or domestic women who give up their vaginas to the vanquishing heroes/heroic defenders.
To come to the original point: how does dressing modestly help women in this case anyway? If anything, it makes them a more precious target even by your weird logic. The notion that rapists somehow want to punish women that are not following traditional dress codes stems from these traditions themselves, and so can only serve as motivation to abolish them. Even if dressing a certain way would be a factor in the motivations for rape - which no one showed any statistical evidence for, despite all the drivel this thread produced on the subject - it is a minor one and that does not justify telling women to limit their freedom and does most certainly NOT justify speaking of mitigating circumstances for the offender. Since your post is a strawman, I will ignore it and explain to you my weird logic: The purpose of life is to pass on our genes. Our bodies, instincts, mental processes and memes have been shaped by evolution to achieve this end. The other purpose of life is to pass on our memes. Our bodies, instincts, mental processes and genes have been shaped by evolution to achieve this end. Human nature is not subject to the human will, since there is no such thing as free will anyway. We are just biological machines, programmed to pass on our genes and memes. There is competition, between gene and gene, gene and meme, and meme and meme to survive and propagate themselves, and humans are the pawns of the chess game of life. I think that covers it.
You clearly don't understand how complex a process evolution - especially cultural evolution - is when you use your simple logic to derive in what way evolution shaped us. It took a lot of "computing" to get this far.
You showed your ignorance before when you asserted that because some traditions survived the competition between "meme and meme" they must be good for society and mankind, which is clearly a fallacy.
And just because we are products of evolution doesn't mean we are not able to go beyond our programming, intelligence does in fact allow us to do so.
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On January 31 2012 17:08 vetinari wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 15:53 Maenander wrote:On January 31 2012 15:02 vetinari wrote:
Rape is about sex and on a subconscious level, pregnancy.
The point of war is to fuck women, whether it be foreign women who are raped after their menfolk are killed, or domestic women who give up their vaginas to the vanquishing heroes/heroic defenders.
To come to the original point: how does dressing modestly help women in this case anyway? If anything, it makes them a more precious target even by your weird logic. The notion that rapists somehow want to punish women that are not following traditional dress codes stems from these traditions themselves, and so can only serve as motivation to abolish them. Even if dressing a certain way would be a factor in the motivations for rape - which no one showed any statistical evidence for, despite all the drivel this thread produced on the subject - it is a minor one and that does not justify telling women to limit their freedom and does most certainly NOT justify speaking of mitigating circumstances for the offender. Since your post is a strawman, I will ignore it and explain to you my weird logic: The purpose of life is to pass on our genes. Our bodies, instincts, mental processes and memes have been shaped by evolution to achieve this end. The other purpose of life is to pass on our memes. Our bodies, instincts, mental processes and genes have been shaped by evolution to achieve this end. Human nature is not subject to the human will, since there is no such thing as free will anyway. We are just biological machines, programmed to pass on our genes and memes. There is competition, between gene and gene, gene and meme, and meme and meme to survive and propagate themselves, and humans are the pawns of the chess game of life. I think that covers it.
No, it does not cover it. Meme theory is more philosophy than biology, makes no testable predictions and is currently useful only as a proto-hypothesis. In fact, given the current understanding of the human brain, defining a meme is in itself fraught with pitfalls, let alone trying to use it in a concrete hypothesis.
What you have just posted is a meaningless amalgamation of oversimplified biology, philosophy and metaphor. What's your point?
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On January 28 2012 07:23 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2012 02:42 zalz wrote:Someone else already said it. Rape is more about domination then simple lust. We approach the mind of a rapist from a normal persons mind. Who would you rape? Well if I had to rape someone, obviously the prettiest girl.
That's just not how these people think. The "rape is about power" bullshit comes from feminist ideology and is not supported by criminological/sociological research. Criminological studies suggest that like every other crime, the motivations for rape are multifaceted. There is significant research which shows that most male rapists do not prefer rape over consensual sex, and while male rapists have been shown to be more aroused by forced sex than a typical male, they are still more strongly aroused by consensual sex. There's also a strong correlation between the rise of widely available porn, and a decrease in sexual violence, which utterly contradicts the feminist idea of "Porn is the theory; rape is the practice." The notion of "rape is about patriarchy and is an attempt to maintain power over women" is based on feminist theorycrafting rather than empirical data. In general, males don't use sex to get/maintain social status and social power; they use social status and social power over others to get sex. When it comes to humans (and to a limited degree, some of our primate cousins), it's females that are the ones to use sex in order to gain social power/status. The mistake made by feminist thinkers was projecting female motivations for sex onto males.
And prison rape?
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On January 31 2012 18:15 Maenander wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 17:08 vetinari wrote:On January 31 2012 15:53 Maenander wrote:On January 31 2012 15:02 vetinari wrote:
Rape is about sex and on a subconscious level, pregnancy.
The point of war is to fuck women, whether it be foreign women who are raped after their menfolk are killed, or domestic women who give up their vaginas to the vanquishing heroes/heroic defenders.
To come to the original point: how does dressing modestly help women in this case anyway? If anything, it makes them a more precious target even by your weird logic. The notion that rapists somehow want to punish women that are not following traditional dress codes stems from these traditions themselves, and so can only serve as motivation to abolish them. Even if dressing a certain way would be a factor in the motivations for rape - which no one showed any statistical evidence for, despite all the drivel this thread produced on the subject - it is a minor one and that does not justify telling women to limit their freedom and does most certainly NOT justify speaking of mitigating circumstances for the offender. Since your post is a strawman, I will ignore it and explain to you my weird logic: The purpose of life is to pass on our genes. Our bodies, instincts, mental processes and memes have been shaped by evolution to achieve this end. The other purpose of life is to pass on our memes. Our bodies, instincts, mental processes and genes have been shaped by evolution to achieve this end. Human nature is not subject to the human will, since there is no such thing as free will anyway. We are just biological machines, programmed to pass on our genes and memes. There is competition, between gene and gene, gene and meme, and meme and meme to survive and propagate themselves, and humans are the pawns of the chess game of life. I think that covers it. You clearly don't understand how complex a process evolution - especially cultural evolution - is when you use your simple logic to derive in what way evolution shaped us. It took a lot of "computing" to get this far. You showed your ignorance before when you asserted that because some traditions survived the competition between "meme and meme" they must be good for society and mankind, which is clearly a fallacy. And just because we are products of evolution doesn't mean we are not able to go beyond our programming, intelligence does in fact allow us to do so.
Uh, no. We can't go beyond our programming, since to go beyond our programming, it would require something that can act outside our programming. In other words, it would require the existence of the soul. Something that I'm sure a good atheist doesn't believe in.
For a start, I never stated that they must be good for society, but there is a distinct possibility that they are good for the survival of the society. Keep in mind that one of the ways memes (cultures, religions, whatever) compete with each other is by getting the hosts of the meme (or whatever you want to call it), to kill the hosts of the other meme. For reference, I would like to survive, I would like my family to survive and I would like my society to survive, in such a way to maximise the long term happiness of the current members of society and their descendants.
Second, the fact that you find evolution - especially cultural evolution - to be complex, doesn't mean it actually is. While genetics, epigenetics, neural interactions may be extremely complicated, that doesn't mean the idea behind evolution is all that complicated.
In truth, it is quite simple: it comes down to reproductive fitness and adaptability to changes in environment. This is true of both biological and cultural evolution. The mechanisms? Not so simple, but then, the mechanism doesn't really matter that much to us, the result does. After all, you do not need to know exactly how metastable proteins can shift into a different form, if you have transmissible spongiform encelopathy. You're going to die anyway.
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Since this seems much about equility, it should be under "human rights" not "womens right" imo.
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On January 31 2012 20:30 vetinari wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 18:15 Maenander wrote:On January 31 2012 17:08 vetinari wrote:On January 31 2012 15:53 Maenander wrote:On January 31 2012 15:02 vetinari wrote:
Rape is about sex and on a subconscious level, pregnancy.
The point of war is to fuck women, whether it be foreign women who are raped after their menfolk are killed, or domestic women who give up their vaginas to the vanquishing heroes/heroic defenders.
To come to the original point: how does dressing modestly help women in this case anyway? If anything, it makes them a more precious target even by your weird logic. The notion that rapists somehow want to punish women that are not following traditional dress codes stems from these traditions themselves, and so can only serve as motivation to abolish them. Even if dressing a certain way would be a factor in the motivations for rape - which no one showed any statistical evidence for, despite all the drivel this thread produced on the subject - it is a minor one and that does not justify telling women to limit their freedom and does most certainly NOT justify speaking of mitigating circumstances for the offender. Since your post is a strawman, I will ignore it and explain to you my weird logic: The purpose of life is to pass on our genes. Our bodies, instincts, mental processes and memes have been shaped by evolution to achieve this end. EDIT: And to answer to your original post, what then, do you make of male on male rape? The other purpose of life is to pass on our memes. Our bodies, instincts, mental processes and genes have been shaped by evolution to achieve this end. Human nature is not subject to the human will, since there is no such thing as free will anyway. We are just biological machines, programmed to pass on our genes and memes. There is competition, between gene and gene, gene and meme, and meme and meme to survive and propagate themselves, and humans are the pawns of the chess game of life. I think that covers it. You clearly don't understand how complex a process evolution - especially cultural evolution - is when you use your simple logic to derive in what way evolution shaped us. It took a lot of "computing" to get this far. You showed your ignorance before when you asserted that because some traditions survived the competition between "meme and meme" they must be good for society and mankind, which is clearly a fallacy. And just because we are products of evolution doesn't mean we are not able to go beyond our programming, intelligence does in fact allow us to do so. Uh, no. We can't go beyond our programming, since to go beyond our programming, it would require something that can act outside our programming. In other words, it would require the existence of the soul. Something that I'm sure a good atheist doesn't believe in. For a start, I never stated that they must be good for society, but there is a distinct possibility that they are good for the survival of the society. Keep in mind that one of the ways memes (cultures, religions, whatever) compete with each other is by getting the hosts of the meme (or whatever you want to call it), to kill the hosts of the other meme. For reference, I would like to survive, I would like my family to survive and I would like my society to survive, in such a way to maximise the long term happiness of the current members of society and their descendants. Second, the fact that you find evolution - especially cultural evolution - to be complex, doesn't mean it actually is. While genetics, epigenetics, neural interactions may be extremely complicated, that doesn't mean the idea behind evolution is all that complicated. In truth, it is quite simple: it comes down to reproductive fitness and adaptability to changes in environment. This is true of both biological and cultural evolution. The mechanisms? Not so simple, but then, the mechanism doesn't really matter that much to us, the result does. After all, you do not need to know exactly how metastable proteins can shift into a different form, if you have transmissible spongiform encelopathy. You're going to die anyway.
Are you claiming that if you don't hold particular ideas, you, your family or your society is going to come to harm? That's not a wild claim, by the way, simply a clearer way of stating what many people believe, such as the belief in free speech.
In any case, we've yet to hear why the notion that rape not being only about sex, but also power is going beyond our "programming". Also, it would be good to explain what is and is not in our programming as regards this topic.
Natural selection may not be very complicated, but one must first propose a heritable variation and differential reproductive success as a result of that variation. What heritable variation are you proposing?
EDIT: To answer your original post, what then, do you make of male on male rape in situations of extreme power differential?
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On January 31 2012 20:30 vetinari wrote:
In truth, it is quite simple: it comes down to reproductive fitness and adaptability to changes in environment. This is true of both biological and cultural evolution.
Just because we know the basic steps of a process does not mean that we understand its trends and results in sufficient detail to make well founded statements. In other words you try to derive too much from the simple premises you listed. There are many numerical problems out there that are easy to formulate but nigh impossible to solve.
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On January 28 2012 12:27 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2012 01:03 Haemonculus wrote:
I'm absolutely aware of that. The conviction rate and the rate at which rapes are often not reported are horridly depressing. Which is why it's so important to talk about and debunk the faulty logic behind those numbers.
It's a cyclical problem . People get away with rape in court because of the "she was asking for it" defense. Then we, as greater society, go home and talk on the internet about maybe there's some merit to her outfit causing rape. We all talk about it, and hear about it on the media, and it starts to become generally accepted.
Then someone gets raped, and the defense uses the "she was asking for it" routine. It's become way too acceptable, and discussions such as this in which people do seem to support the notion that the victim's outfit is somehow an important factor are part of the problem. The 'she was asking for it' defence is obscene, and thankfully seems to be an attitude that is less widely held than it was before. At least I should bloody-well hope so! On the other hand, take a recent case over here. It was an anti-rape campaign, aimed at students (both male and female). For the women, some of the advice was to paraphrase 'don't over-drink, try to stay with friends'. Apparently, this was grievously offensive to the more feminist inclined thinkers who pressured our Student's Union so much that (if I recall correctly) a lot of the posters were taken down This is a great example of taking feminist invective and using it in a ridiculous manner. Alcohol is a dangerous drug, that makes people much more vunerable to all manner of harm than they otherwise would be. To promote moderation in drinking is NOT victim-blaming in the same way that saying 'oh well she dressed like a slut' is. One girl told me I was actively condoning rape with my stance on this particular point though, which was nice to hear. 'Oh you wouldn't say that if you knew a rape victim.' I do actually, and she was raped on a night out after drinking a lot and essentially blacking out, but I try not to use emotive stories to bolster my arguments as I don't feel comfortable doing such a thing. Rape has become an issue that cannot be debated sensibly anymore, which is a shame. Many of the statistics I have seen are worthless, because of the difficulties in obtaining them, and a lot of material I've seen on this issue is basing itself on small sample sizes and extrapolating to find nation-wide trends. Would be grateful actually if anybody could PM me some actual useful, reliable data to have a look at.
There are several ways to look at that ad campaign. There have been similar ones in the states lately, and yes they're catching a lot of flak. I can see both sides of the issue. On the one hand, giving out advice on drinking habits doesn't seem too malicious, but it doesn't do much to solve the actual problem.
In the drinking scenario, we're again dealing with the "stranger in a bar/club" situation. Some subset of men are taking advantage of drunk women. You can look at the problem in several ways, but the point of view we take with the "give out drinking advice" campaign is "some women are drinking too much and putting themselves at risk," instead of "some criminals are taking advantage of them when they do." It suggests that the rapists/abusers are a constant, cannot be dealt with, etc, and that instead of doing something about the attacker, we try to alter the actions of the potential victim so that they don't get abused. We do seemingly nothing to treat the real problem, which is a group of criminals that have become so culturally accepted that they feel they can get away with their crimes.
That is likely what your friend meant when she said your stance was condoning rape. Might not at all have been what you intended, but when you focus the only corrective action on the victim and not the criminal, it can easily be seen as condoning the crime. If some rapist is at a bar clearly intending to rape someone, and only if that someone is drunk, then sure, some women that might have gotten drunk but didn't because of an ad campaign telling them not to, but it leaves the underlying problem. There's still some rapist at the bar intending to rape someone. That hasn't been fixed at all. Chances are he'll simply go after another victim, and then we can all lambast her decision to drink at a bar.
As for info, I always post this DoJ summary in threads like this. Long summary document, and all sources used are cited in the footnotes. Very informative, less than two years dated, and dispels a LOT of bullshit myths about rape in our culture.
Rape isn't an issue no one can talk about. It might be hard here, with retards like vetinari or sunprince babbling about this or that, but don't think it's an issue that cannot be debated.
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While that is true, it is not precisely my claim. My claim is that in order for my society, my family and I to not come to harm, other people must generally hold certain ideas and act in accordance with them. Not exactly a controversial idea, when it comes to ideas like "murder is bad", but rather more controversial when it comes to ideas where the negative consequences are not obvious, such as "liberalism is bad".
Where we differ, I expect, is that we value certain things differently. That is, we place different weights on the value of liberty, security, honor, justice, fairness, equality, life, stability, the wellbeing of various groups, the welfare of our descendants, etc.
Back to rape.
Hmm, a heritable variation: willingness to rape. Differential reproductive success: person who is willing to rape is likely to impregnate a woman, especially since men can identify ovulating women (ovulating women seem more attractive). Hence, the willingness to rape is likely to increase reproductive success, provided that the "willingness to rape" trait is balanced with a "be careful to not get caught" trait.
Evidence for this being true: women who are raped tend to be disproportionately attractive, they tend to be young, and, barring the use of the pill, are more likely to conceive than one would expect if men were unable to determine whether a woman is ovulating. In addition, stranger rape is disproportionately likely to be by unattractive men with dismal chances of acquiring a willing mate. The availability of pornography also negatively correlates with prevalence of rape, including that the availability of child pornography negatively correlates with sexual molestation of children.
As a result of this, we can conclude that rape is about sex. That there are rationalisations, doesn't change its underlying reason.
If it helps, consider these:
What is sex for?
What is love for?
You could say that sex is about expressing your love. But this is a rationalisation, its about introducing sperm to egg. The pleasure gained from it is purely to get you to do it more.
You could say that love is about sharing experience, transcendant joy, connection to God. But, in truth, its about maintaining paternal investment and maternal investment into the children.
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EPT
