AGAIN?!?! Rape Allegation And Victim Blaming

robjvargas said:

Rulebooks do and have existed. Etiquette, for just one example.

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Etiquette is more about order than morality.

Those rules were flawed in the past, I agree, but throwing them out isn't any better.

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We already have laws. That's a rulebook. What needs to change is the cultural mindset.

Making it about rules only leads to people trying to see how far they can push them.

It's not enough to ask "it is okay to do this to someone?"

You have to evaluate the moment, your partner, yourself, your partner in that moment, yourself in that moment.

It's not enough to teach "no means no."

We need to teach respect.

You DO NOT want to try and remedy this by sticking to "etiquette." That's the system that tells girls they should be quiet and smile politely, no matter what. They're not to make noise or a fuss, and they definitely shouldn't argue.

Etiquette makes you a decoration, like the silver service on the table.

robjvargas said:

It doesn't feel like anyone read my statement that rules of etiquette were flawed

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Yes, I did. I'm saying it's more than that. It's not just that the rules are flawed.

It's the mindset that's flawed. If there are rules, we will always seek to bend them.

If we ask what is technically rape, we have already lost.

Asking for a rulebook is just another way of putting the burden on the victim.

Coming from a position of privilege, it's natural to want a rulebook. It's easy, it's clear-cut, it tends to favor you, and it means you don't have to think.

People don't like constantly second-guessing themselves and re-evaluating absolutely everything about a situation.

But that's what the rest of the world who isn't in a position of privilege has to do, is doing, continues to do, all the time.

No, it's not comfortable.

Being respectful means constantly re-evaluating absolutely everything.

The first step is acknowledging that there do exist a set of assumptions and expectations — they are widely shared and they are out there to the point that not only do most people know them, they damn well expect YOU to know them — and that they suck.

Having acknowledged that much, the second step is to acknowledge that therefore there do not exist any alternative non-sucky rules, conventions, norms, codes of conduct, etc etc etc, that you can reliably expect people to hold as a set of shared assumptions unless you talk about it.

Raise your hand if you're one of those people who feel that talking about sexism and gendered behavior and courting and flirting rules and whatnot is going to kill all the spontaneity and make possibly sex-tinged interactions about as sexy as a biology dissection lab. Yeah? OK, thank you for raising your hand. Get over it. Learn how to discuss it anyhow. Discover how to feel sexually confident in the context of having those discussions. It's not as awful as you may think.

robjvargas said:

But it does not logically follow that because one rulebook was inadequate, that none can ever exist. Nor is it logical to assume that if one were to exist, that it can never change.

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The entire approach is wrong.

I do not and never will accept a "rulebook" that is based on the spot judgment of one side of an interaction. In some cases, that's what we have now.

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It's an imaginary rulebook.

There is a good middle ground in there somewhere. And we're close to it. But we're not there.

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No "middle ground" is necessary.

A profound shift in cultural mindset is.

It's not a matter of agreeing on the rules.

It's not that kind of game in the first place.

robjvargas said:

There *is* a level of not knowing "the rules" when it comes to women.

There was a day not too long ago where, in the same afternoon, I had one woman glare and turn away when I smiled and nodded at her. And then one woman who commutes on the same train I use, who'd never once looked me in the eyes in the two years I've been commuting to this job, asked me what she did that made me angry with her.

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This doesn't just apply to women. People of both genders can be in a bad mood, or simply be not very nice people, or even have issues that make them unable to read social signals well. I've had both male and female people act strangely when I smile or try to exchange pleasantries (in a completely non flirting way), and I've also had men take it the wrong way and assume I want to jump their bones just because I smiled and nodded.

Or maybe some of these women have had bad experiences where they've smiled and exchanged pleasantries with a guy who took it the wrong way and started "hitting on them," or even got stalkerish. This has happened to me, and I felt all confused and guilty. What did I do to make him think I was flirting? I just smiled and said hi. Is that wrong?

If this sort of thing has happened to a woman a lot, she might be twice shy, so to speak.

Probably the best approach to dealing with women is simply to treat them as people and treat them how you'd like to be treated in their situation. You won't get a 100% approval rating, but no one does. But guys who are constantly on the prowl, who look at most encounters with women as an opportunity to "get" sex, and by any means necessary, well, that's just creepy. That attitude leads to a lot of date rape, I think.

Back when I was in college, the term date rape was only just being coined, and many guys looked at a young woman who was so drunk she couldn't maintain as an "opportunity." Absolutely despicable, and also baffling. How much fun are you going to have with someone who's on the verge of puking?

I think a lot of what these guys did was more about bragging to their friends than having fun. Guys in fraternities used to even leave their drapes open or have peepholes in their walls so their buddies could watch when they had a drunk girl in their room.

robjvargas said:

I'm married, and good GOD am I happy about it. "No means no" is easy for me to understand. That part I get. All the rest of it, sometimes it feels like a maze where I'm not even allowed to see the walls until I smack into 'em nose-first. And where the walls shift and move at random.

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That's just life. People don't always get along or operate on the same wavelength, and we don't all play by the same rules. Everyone is moving the walls all the time. I remember feeling very frustrated when I was younger, because I felt like there was some rulebook everyone got a copy of that I didn't.

There is no such book. People are mostly just bumbling around in the dark (or in dim light, anyway). I think we tend to remember the misunderstandings we have with the "opposite" gender more, though, because the interactions have that extra dollop of hormones, and of course, women are a little bit (or sometimes a lot) afraid of men, since men are usually stronger physically and are perceived as being the more violent gender.

I think erring on the side of caution in romantic situations with people one doesn't know well is probably the best call. But if a random stranger on the street gets all nasty because you smiled and said hi? Shrug it off and move on.

I think one of the really twisted things about rape culture is that it leads to this assumption that once it goes away then all men will be rapists.

Therefore, we have to agree on the rules beforehand, so we can say we're the good guys. We know the rules, we follow them, therefore we're not rapists.

It's such a wicked conundrum, because it's impossible. Human relationships are permeated by subjectivity, and sex is one of the most personal and intimate of all aspects of it. You can no more hammer out the technical details by following a rulebook than you can engineer an individual's orgasm by reading from a handbook.

Therefore, rape culture stays. Because of this unfounded fear that we'll become rapists by violating some secret unspoken technicality.

But we're already complicit. We share the mindset that creates the problem. We have to deprogram it.

Requiring a rulebook is part of the programming.

And if you're worried about being falsely accused of rape, get the fuck over it.

robjvargas said:

There *is* a level of not knowing "the rules" when it comes to women.

There was a day not too long ago where, in the same afternoon, I had one woman glare and turn away when I smiled and nodded at her. And then one woman who commutes on the same train I use, who'd never once looked me in the eyes in the two years I've been commuting to this job, asked me what she did that made me angry with her.
.

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So you are saying that two totally different human beings who had two totally different upbringings, and two totally different set of life experiences, and two totally different days, reacted totally differently to your different interactions with them? I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! (that was a CASABLANCA reference ).

Seriously, if you see women as women first and human second I can see why you might be confused that they would react so differently and not be easily predictable, but if you see women as humans who have different personalities and life experiences why would it be that odd? Do you honestly not think men would react differently? Do you honestly think that men are so much more simple and lacking complex nuance and personalities that they easily and predictably behave as one expects them to? Because, dude, I can tell you, they SO don't.

We are human. We react based on our personal life experience. I am a woman, and I am relatively open to strangers who talk with me, I will politely engage, but make it clear I don't want an extended conversation. I have a friend who will totally shut someone down the second they try to talk with her. I have another friend who feels obligated to be as open and warm to strangers as she is to close friends, and can find herself in awkward situations not being able to say no to people.

Are we unreadable females? Are we unfathomable? Do we make you happy you don't have to interact and woo us because we are so annoying as to have individual personalities?

Honestly, this is one of those things that just makes me want to scream. How dare I, human woman, have desires and a personality unique to me. How dare I not conform to some kind of set of etiquette rules that put me in my place and command me how to act. How dare I not respond the same as my fellow women out there. God, how unreasonable of me. How difficult I make the lives of men. If only I just made their lives easier. After all, that's my purpose in life, to be here for the pleasure of men.

Yup, your post made me angry. Maybe more than you think is warranted. But try living every day of your life not being considered an individual person by most people you meet. It really sucks, man. It really sucks. And I think your understanding of how much that sucks will help your understanding of rape culture which you clearly are interested in considering you post threads here about every single major reported incident of rape in the news. You truly seem to care, but you need to understand more than just the surface level grotesque. There's the simple fact that we aren't considered people by a great many men that contributes to rape culture. And something as simple as you saying that women don't all react the same way and that's frustrating is a perfect example of us not being considered human. It's small, it's not wildly offensive. But it's insidious.

robjvargas said:

There *is* a level of not knowing "the rules" when it comes to women.

There was a day not too long ago where, in the same afternoon, I had one woman glare and turn away when I smiled and nodded at her. And then one woman who commutes on the same train I use, who'd never once looked me in the eyes in the two years I've been commuting to this job, asked me what she did that made me angry with her.

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The "rule," which applies to both sexes, is that caring about this stuff is not good. Get over it.

Better yet, be passively hostile to a stranger every once in a while. Once a week, maybe once a day. It can be fun.

Rob - no you misunderstand.

Your point in that post wasn't to say that women can be jerks just like men. Your point was to say that women as a whole had unpredictable rules that men had to follow, and as an example you offered two situations where women behaved differently from each other.

Women can be jerks for sure, and you shouldn't be treated badly when you have done nothing wrong. Nor is it your fault when you are. But that's not what you were talking about. You were saying that because two different individuals dared to respond to you in two different ways, this meant that women as a monolith had strange rules that men could just never follow. Instead of it maybe meaning that there were two individual people who responded to you differently from each other because they are unique humans.

Also what Roxx said absolutely acknowledged that women can be jerks, notice how she said "people" in her statement. The fact that you drew the conclusion from what she said to mean you are always in the wrong is quite a leap of logic. You should maybe examine why you made that leap and why you got quite so defensive at a simple statement that women are just like other people: flawed.

I think the point being made is that if you are close enough with someone that you are getting intimate - even if you just got suddenly very close with someone who was previously a stranger - you have to attempt to see them as an individual, not as a certain classification that has unique "rules" unto itself. You have to get to know them - even if it is on the spot - enough to read their cues, and honestly, the less well you know them, the more you need to get verbal clarification of what you think you're reading in those cues.

It's not unsexy to ask someone if they're ready. I'm sure we can all think of good ways to phrase that when the need arises.

But there is no monolithic class called "women," and therefore there can be no rule books on them. That's not "unfair" or anything - that's what we understand and appreciate in daily relationships that are not sex. We love individuality and independence in general - so why would we crave women who have no personal identity when we want sex?

robjvargas said:

So what I get out of this is that, no matter how the woman responds, I'm the problem.

If I complain about a man glaring at me for saying hello, I'm told the guy's a dick. If it's a woman did the glaring, I need to understand and get over it.

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Why is the guy a dick? Maybe he's just having a bad day.

robjvargas said:

So what I get out of this is that, no matter how the woman responds, I'm the problem.

If I complain about a man glaring at me for saying hello, I'm told the guy's a dick. If it's a woman did the glaring, I need to understand and get over it.

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Who said that? What you quote in your post is this:

Roxxsmom said:

This doesn't just apply to women. People of both genders can be in a bad mood, or simply be not very nice people, or even have issues that make them unable to read social signals well.

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Seems a clear cut way of saying, "Sometimes people are jerks. Sometimes they've got other issues." The complaint people had was that you were decrying the lack of a rule book for women because two women acted differently around you and people were saying women, like men, are individuals who do act and react in different ways. That's what you need to understand. Not that women can't be jerks (they can), not that you can't get upset at a particular woman being a jerk (you can), but that taking that reaction, contrasting it with another woman's reaction, and then complaining about them as women who behave differently and thus make it hard to know the rules, is something you need to deal with. That expectation (that women as a group have some sort of rule book you're not privy to) is what you need to get over.

I should not attempt to put words into robjvargas's mouth (or pen or keyboard), but I am not unfamiliar with the predicament in which one is male; in which, as the male person, one is expected to engage in certain behaviors in order to indicate sexual interest if one is indeed interested in sex being a part of one's life; and in which those behaviors are NOT mirror-image to the behaviors necessary for a female person if indeed she is interested in sex being a part of her life, but instead are more blatant, more of a direct expression of sexual initiative, and, furthermore, are behaviors that one is expected to engage in despite little to no flirtatious encouragement.


For as long as one continues to buy into the notion that this situation, like the weather, is simply "how things are" (complaining about the weather isn't going to change it), it is a situation that can make male people feel that a lot of courage is required of them, to take this initiative, to take this risk of running into hostile negative responses instead of flirtatious encouragement. And the guy who really hates to annoy women but who doesn't want to forego the opportunity for sexual possibilities may well pine for a rule book that says "THESE are the situations in which you can be forward and blatant in your expression of sexual interest and not be at risk of running into those hostile negative responses; THESE on the other hand are the things you should not do and women will not expect you to, and you will NOT end up feeling like there's no consistency or that males who engage in the latter behaviors get to have additional sexual experiences or that you, when you engage in the behaviors of the first type, are still likely to encounter the hostile negative reactions".


Generally speaking, I haven't had much opportunity to sit down and compare notes with other male people about sex and male behavior and expectations, but to my sex in a general open manner I'd like to say we should not buy into that notion. It's a trap. And also, don't blame the women: they didn't set it and they get trapped in it too, and in fact they've been complaining about it a lot more coherently and consistently than we have. Anyway, it's not "how things are" like the weather. It's how the RULES are, and they suck. So QUIT PLAYING BY THEM. Do complain about them, but not to individual women as if they set this mess up this way. Complain openly in public and realize that it's political, as in sexual politics, as in sex roles and polarization and sexism and all that stuff.

AHunter3 said:

For as long as one continues to buy into the notion that this situation, like the weather, is simply "how things are" (complaining about the weather isn't going to change it), it is a situation that can make male people feel that a lot of courage is required of them, to take this initiative, to take this risk of running into hostile negative responses instead of flirtatious encouragement. And the guy who really hates to annoy women but who doesn't want to forego the opportunity for sexual possibilities may well pine for a rule book that says "THESE are the situations in which you can be forward and blatant in your expression of sexual interest and not be at risk of running into those hostile negative responses; THESE on the other hand are the things you should not do and women will not expect you to, and you will NOT end up feeling like there's no consistency or that males who engage in the latter behaviors get to have additional sexual experiences or that you, when you engage in the behaviors of the first type, are still likely to encounter the hostile negative reactions".

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we should not buy into that notion.

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Yup. That's wishful thinking.

It's like trying to write a novel that will offend no one.

People are individuals. Individuals are different from one another. Deal with it.

I'm a statistician. I know about variance. Trust me.

robjvargas said:

So what I get out of this is that, no matter how the woman responds, I'm the problem.

If I complain about a man glaring at me for saying hello, I'm told the guy's a dick. If it's a woman did the glaring, I need to understand and get over it.

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No, I think you should probably just get over it if the guy glares at you, too. None of it is a big deal, and none of it has to do with the "rules" of interacting with either gender. It has only to do with the individuals you interacted with.

Also, what Toothpaste said.