Is it ok to use the word rape synonymously with curbstomp

[Spekio]

It's more of a general thing, that subtle changes in the environment can cause disproportionate responses. Even in areas where we expect the problem to be something that is totally intractable and caused by deeper environmental issues.

For example, suicides tend to trigger other suicides, with 'suicide epidemics' being a real thing. Even though you would expect that each person's decision to commit suicide is strictly personal, it's undeniably influenced by outside factors.

Trying to stop suicides by telling people that dying is bad obviously isn't going to work, because basically everyone knows that dying is bad. Fear of death is about as instinctive as any human drive. So if we want to combat suicide epidemics, it is desirable to look at the details- how is this social epidemic transmitted through the population, can we cut some of the links that cause one suicide to result in others? It may not be immediately obvious how to do that, but doing it can still pay off.

When we talk about this in the context of rape we get the 'rape culture' debate. To what extent is rape caused by generic "men lusting after women?" And to what extent is rape caused by the fact that specific men, who exhibit specific behaviors, respond to specific situations in specific ways? Is the response perhaps a situational one? Perhaps a given man would never rape a stranger but would rape a woman he thinks of as 'his.' Perhaps he would commit rape under some circumstances but not others.

So in order to reduce the number of rapes, we try to analyze the issue and find things we can fix.

If we just say "it's because Westerners get hangups about sex," well, that may be an oversimplification, and even if it isn't it's a problem too large to fix. Changing a whole culture is impossible unless you have awfully good leverage. So in effect it's like shrugging off responsibility for fixing things... because it's a problem we can't take responsibility for.

But if we look at it in more detail, we see that the men who actually commit rapes are mostly ones who harbor certain attitudes toward women. Who behave in certain ways.

So we think of subtle ways in which we can alter the men's attitudes to encourage them to respect women at the less-conscious level, rather than despising them and treating them like property. We ensure that women are aware of what kind of attitudes and behaviors signal that a man might commit rape, to reduce the men's opportunities to do so. We do a host of little things, we discourage people from speaking in ways that reinforce pro-rape cultural messages, and we encourage them to speak in ways that undermine those pro-rape messages.

No one thing will end rape in this way, but every little bit helps... which is how you can go about changing a whole culture, one piece at a time.

I got the impression you don't think women can be rapists, Mike. This is a disturbing trend I've been seeing on this whole discussion, actually.

I'm not saying small changes cannot make a big impact, but there has to be a purpose to the changes. I'm at a loss on how exactly I am a rape apologist but not a murder one depending on the metaphor I use. Am I a spousal abuse apologist for refering to those shirt I don't know if there are any other names as wifebeaters? I'll point you back at the toy gun example.

The "weird hang ups" I mentioned was perhaps a understatement. I mean the concept of how at the same time we westerners crave and demonize sex at the same time, and how "purity" is somehow tied to one's sexual activity. Plus we have the bible-approved gender roles that seem to be present in the whole of western society. Seriously, there was some other topic on SDN one poster here wanted to give a sexually mature teenager community service for sexting with his sexually mature girlfriend -which, as a penal minimalist, makes me facepalm.

Pretending the matter does not exist and not talking about won't matter in the scheme of things at all. In fact, I think it set us back, like most repression tatics do. Making words taboo gives some power to them. I'd point out that nigger is a taboo when cracker, paddy and mick are not.

I think is asking us to be offended on principle, on rather arbitrary reasons, to achieve basically nothing. Sure, let's think we are smart and socially conscious and pat ourselves on our collective backs for doing basically nothing. Same as let say... carbon credits.

On changing a culture, it can be done and it can be done fast, not by drastic means. From the top of my head, I'd suggest legalizing and formalizing prostitution. Conjugal visits - Prison rape in Brazil was greatly reduced when conjugal visits were allowed.

Or, on a personal level, talking to people about it.

I'll abide by SDN's decision, however.

[Simon_Jester]

But... it reduces risk. To me, that's like buying insurance: people who buy insurance aren't morally superior to people who don't, but we still encourage people to do so out of prudence and a desire to avoid disaster. You are not morally or mentally inferior for not having insurance- but... seriously, you should probably have insurance if you can arrange for it.

Does it? Buying insurance doesn't really reduce risk in most cases; it guarantees you won't be completely fucked if something goes tits up.

It reduces risk in the sense that actuaries and other risk-assessment professionals judge it, not in the informal sense of "risk" as "probability of bad thing happening."

If an insurance policy reduces the consequences of a bad event, without changing the likelihood of the event, then in the formal sense of risk-management, that insurance policy reduces the risk.

On the other hand, educating people, including women, on how to avoid criminally-inclined people (including rape-inclined men), may have a lot of payoffs, including reducing the number of rapes.

I think this runs the risk of creating stereotypes that a sociopath would eventually learn how to identify and take advantage of.

At least then they have to work for it, and you weed out some of the less talented psychopaths.

In warfare the concept is called 'virtual attrition.' If you do something that forces the enemy to do less harm, you've won an important victory even if you never actually fired a shot at him. If you can come up with a way to cause 5% fewer rapes to happen, congratulations, that means hundreds of thousands and eventually millions of women not getting raped. Which is a victory even if it doesn't have any effect on the other 95% of cases.

I think it's safe to say that men probably aren't the best people to go around giving this sort of advice.

There are certain men (for example, men with a background in criminal psychology or handling domestic abuse cases) who might have this knowledge. By having encountered many known rapists and dealt with many situations in which rape was a possible outcome of a situation, they might have learned to observe certain patterns that would allow them to say "this kind of behavior is what we see from a lot of rapists."

The average man is NOT a good choice to give such advice. Incidentally, I wouldn't make up such advice on my own; I only pass on the gestalt of what I have heard from other sources that I believe may be credible because they have a background of the nature I describe above. Even then I'm only giving examples and summaries, of advice that I know would be harmless to listen to even if it turns out to be bad advice.

At the same time, though, the average woman does not have an automatic magical "this guy is a rapist" detector built into her brain. The average normal human in general- male or female- doesn't necessarily have great insight into how psychopaths think, or how abusive personalities behave, unless they are told these things. Which isn't just an issue with rape, it's an issue with all sorts of crime and toxic relationships.

So there is still room for that kind of education. And rape is one of many issues where a better understanding of psychology, and the psychology of pathological people, might benefit the average person.

Trying to stop suicides by telling people that dying is bad obviously isn't going to work, because basically everyone knows that dying is bad. Fear of death is about as instinctive as any human drive. So if we want to combat suicide epidemics, it is desirable to look at the details- how is this social epidemic transmitted through the population, can we cut some of the links that cause one suicide to result in others? It may not be immediately obvious how to do that, but doing it can still pay off.

Studies have shown a direct correlation between people's ability to commit suicide and the suicide rate. Gun owners, for example, were far more likely to commit the act than non gun owners who otherwise thought about it.

Well yes, that's the thing about a complex phenomenon- it's correlated with, and caused by, lots of things. Not just one. Having ready access to things you can kill yourself with increases the risk of suicides- not just guns, either. A fair number of people decide to commit suicide by crashing their cars, and that may well be an impulse decision that occurs because the means to arrange a fatal accident for yourself are right there.

At the same time, suicide is also correlated with depression, with unemployment, and with other people in one's social circle committing suicide.

There are lots of different angles of attack on a complex problem; it's pointless and useless to ignore the easy possibilities in favor of the hard possibilities. So trying to cut back 'rape culture' jokes and speeches and attitudes is a good idea, and encouraging people to be aware of what kind of men are most likely to commit rape, and all sorts of other things, can still be good plans at the same time.

If you don't have immediate access to a means of following through you were less likely to do it. I think there's a vector for rape that a lot of people are overlooking by focusing on bullshit like identifying social tics and cues.

If you're hinting at something, please tell me, because the only option I came up with on my own seemed dumb and I don't want to think you're dumb.

I imagine that mostly it doesn't. On the other hand, the kind of stuff I've been talking about is less about violent confrontation and how to win it, and more about spotting social cues and resisting the urge toward wishful-thinking.

Women are already better at spotting social cues than men in general, so I'm not sure I think we're in any position to tell them what to look for.

Again, that doesn't automatically mean that every woman is somehow born knowing how to spot the social cues that mark a potential rapist. Or that whatever cue-spotting they might have in that regard can't be honed.

For that matter, it's not me who should actually be the source of any of this. It could be any number of people who aren't me, male and female alike.

To me, any meaningful attempt to reduce the rape rate would revolve around helping them avoid the acquaintance rapes, the date rapes, and so far as possible the spousal and family rapes.

Obviously "don't walk through dark alleys" isn't useful advice. "Think carefully about who you can and cannot trust" is.

How are they supposed to avoid being rhoofied? Vigilantly hover over their drink the entire time and never take their hands off?

I don't know. Does that mean you think there is no way for a woman to reduce the probability of being drugged? Even if you're right, does that mean there is no way a woman could conceivably reduce the probability of any of the myriad of scenarios that can result in her being raped?

I mean, at some point you're doing an awfully good job of denying that people can take rationally calculated actions to protect themselves. It's possible to be clear that the victims of rape are not to blame for the rape, without asserting that rape is this completely unstoppable crime and that all women are helpless and powerless to do anything to protect themselves.

True to a large extent- but even then, it is often possible for us to spot people who are trying to manipulate us into thinking they're good guys, as long as we take off the rose-tinted glasses. There's always some manipulative, date-raping psychopath who can slip under the radar, but it is better to have the radar than to not have it.

Hilarious and more or less wrong.

So basically... I don't even know what you're arguing here. That humans are defenseless against liars and cheats and have no ability to protect ourselves against crime, that we are incapable of realizing when we're dealing with violent or selfish people.

Because basically, every time I even say "you know, it's possible to figure out when you're being tricked, to look for signs of a manipulative or abusive personality, to avoid people with anger management issues," it's like this idea somehow frightens or repels you.

Do you think this constitutes blaming the victim, and therefore you need to mock the very idea that women can even have agency in the process of reducing the rape rate? Because I don't.

I got the impression you don't think women can be rapists, Mike. This is a disturbing trend I've been seeing on this whole discussion, actually.

1) My name isn't Mike, though I get the joke.
2) While I am aware that there can be female rapists and male victims, the vast majority of rapes are male-on-female, and we all know that perfectly well. Therefore, when I am trying to write in coherent sentences, I may use "women" and "men" instead of more gender-neutral terms. Sorry, but I find it hard to imagine anyone doesn't know what I mean.

I'm not saying small changes cannot make a big impact, but there has to be a purpose to the changes. I'm at a loss on how exactly I am a rape apologist but not a murder one depending on the metaphor I use. Am I a spousal abuse apologist for refering to those shirt I don't know if there are any other names as wifebeaters? I'll point you back at the toy gun example.

Using the word "rape" as a metaphor for "score a victory over" isn't rape apologism. It is, however, part of a cultural association we might want to break.

Indeed, I'd argue that it's one of those 'Western hangups about sex' you're talking about; the idea that the sex act can be a means by which one person claims power and control at the expense of another, and that it can be used by one person to defeat or lessen another.

Pretending the matter does not exist and not talking about won't matter in the scheme of things at all. In fact, I think it set us back, like most repression tatics do. Making words taboo gives some power to them. I'd point out that nigger is a taboo when cracker, paddy and mick are not.

"Nigger" has power because it's associated with a real history of oppression- it was a word used as a tool of oppression, to denote an infinitely lowly and unavoidable status, before it became a taboo. By contrast, "cracker" never had that kind of power; it was at most an expression of black frustration with whites.

"Mick" and "Paddy" had power at one time, but as the Irish assimilated into American culture, in America at least that power was lost.

I think is asking us to be offended on principle, on rather arbitrary reasons, to achieve basically nothing. Sure, let's think we are smart and socially conscious and pat ourselves on our collective backs for doing basically nothing. Same as let say... carbon credits.

On changing a culture, it can be done and it can be done fast, not by drastic means. From the top of my head, I'd suggest legalizing and formalizing prostitution. Conjugal visits - Prison rape in Brazil was greatly reduced when conjugal visits were allowed.

It's unclear to me to what extent legalized prostitution would reduce the rape rate, because it's unclear what fraction of rapists commit rape because they want sex, and what fraction do it because they want dominance, or because they believe they have a right to sex with a specific individual.

The thing is, while it can be a farce to ban the symbols of a act you want to stamp out in the wrong context, that doesn't mean it's always going to fail. Making it socially unacceptable to, for example, promote racism can make it easier to raise the next generation free of racism, for instance.

[Panzersharkcat]

It's unclear to me to what extent legalized prostitution would reduce the rape rate, because it's unclear what fraction of rapists commit rape because they want sex, and what fraction do it because they want dominance, or because they believe they have a right to sex with a specific individual.

This says one model estimated a 31% decrease in per capita rape offences when Rhode Island unintentionally legalized prostitution through bad wording.

[Simon_Jester]

Apparently, the "unclear what fraction" fraction is 31/100, then.

That would tend to clarify matters quite nicely then. Thanks for telling me.

[Spekio]

1) My name isn't Mike, though I get the joke.

2) While I am aware that there can be female rapists and male victims, the vast majority of rapes are male-on-female, and we all know that perfectly well. Therefore, when I am trying to write in coherent sentences, I may use "women" and "men" instead of more gender-neutral terms. Sorry, but I find it hard to imagine anyone doesn't know what I mean.

I did not mean just you, but a lot of posts here. From my experience, you are nothing short of coherent, sorry if I implied otherwise. I just don't like double standards.

Using the word "rape" as a metaphor for "score a victory over" isn't rape apologism. It is, however, part of a cultural association we might want to break.

Maybe, but I will repeat myself and say the same would be true to muder, etc. I'd rather we wouldn't limit personal liberties such as hyperbole outside of strict necessities, lest we have tyranny. Of course, social tact is a must, and intent needs to be considered.

There is a comedy show named "Proibidão", mainly dealing in taboo humor. That is, racism, homophobia, etc. One band member, hired for the event, made the headlines when he left the stage mid-act to press charges for racism against one of the comedians.

Opinions varied in the juridic community, but the most pertinent one (I think it's from the judge that dismissed the denounce, thought I'm not sure) is the intent in the "racial injury"(free translation) was not present because of the nature of the intent of the joke.

We could, by analogy, apply such in all social situations.

Indeed, I'd argue that it's one of those 'Western hangups about sex' you're talking about; the idea that the sex act can be a means by which one person claims power and control at the expense of another, and that it can be used by one person to defeat or lessen another.

I completely agree with that.

"Nigger" has power because it's associated with a real history of oppression- it was a word used as a tool of oppression, to denote an infinitely lowly and unavoidable status, before it became a taboo. By contrast, "cracker" never had that kind of power; it was at most an expression of black frustration with whites.

"Mick" and "Paddy" had power at one time, but as the Irish assimilated into American culture, in America at least that power was lost.

I have to agree that the assimilation has not yet happened with the blacks yet.

It's unclear to me to what extent legalized prostitution would reduce the rape rate, because it's unclear what fraction of rapists commit rape because they want sex, and what fraction do it because they want dominance, or because they believe they have a right to sex with a specific individual.

There are studies on the above, I'm quite sure. It is one of the main pushes for the regulation of prostitution here.

The thing is, while it can be a farce to ban the symbols of a act you want to stamp out in the wrong context, that doesn't mean it's always going to fail. Making it socially unacceptable to, for example, promote racism can make it easier to raise the next generation free of racism, for instance.

That's a given, my point is this is the wrong context.

[Simon_Jester]

Using the word "rape" as a metaphor for "score a victory over" isn't rape apologism. It is, however, part of a cultural association we might want to break.

Maybe, but I will repeat myself and say the same would be true to muder, etc. I'd rather we wouldn't limit personal liberties such as hyperbole outside of strict necessities, lest we have tyranny. Of course, social tact is a must, and intent needs to be considered.

Thing is, I'm not even talking about something that might be liable for criminal penalties. It's not "thought policing" because there are no police involved in the process.

Here's how I look at it.

In my own life I'm willing to work rather hard to ensure that people I know and care about don't feel like I'm trying to bully them with my choice of words. Which is an issue for me because I tend to talk over people and interrupt them a lot... and some people, including loved ones of mine, can feel subtly bullied or pushed around by that if I'm not careful.

I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation for them to have of me- that I watch my own words in an attempt to make them feel safe, respected, and valued.

And I think that ties into what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that I think that if we want a better world, one thing we can and should do is stop considering it socially acceptable to say things that we know contribute to the atmosphere of oppression. That does not require any person to give up your freedoms- because the definition of 'polite speech' is not part of the restrictions on your civil rights.

It is not a violation of your personal liberties that if you call people by vile curse words and insult their friends, they won't like you. It is not a violation of your personal liberties that if you act overly familiar with people you have a business relationship with, they'll find you annoying and unpleasant and may stop doing business.

People have a reasonably expectation that they will be treated with basic courtesy and respect. That includes direct respect (what is said to their face) and indirect respect (what is said about them). And for the sake of that respect, I think that it would be a good thing if we stop using "rape" as a metaphor in the way that was originally discussed. There are situations where using "rape" as a metaphor still makes literary sense.

But "the German team raped the Brazilian team in the World Cup semifinals" would not be one of them, to give an example.

I also think it would be good for male comedians (and would-be comedians) to back off the rape jokes. Especially the ones that only the men in their audiences laugh at. More of the same thing going on there.

There is a comedy show named "Proibidão", mainly dealing in taboo humor. That is, racism, homophobia, etc. One band member, hired for the event, made the headlines when he left the stage mid-act to press charges for racism against one of the comedians.

Opinions varied in the juridic community, but the most pertinent one (I think it's from the judge that dismissed the denounce, thought I'm not sure) is the intent in the "racial injury"(free translation) was not present because of the nature of the intent of the joke.

We could, by analogy, apply such in all social situations.

The problem here is that while that comedian may (officially) not have intended any injury toward the race he was mocking, such injury can still happen. And the injury is more serious in cases where a substantial section of the population still thinks that hurting the target group is acceptable. And where the targets know this.

If you tell a joke about the Ku Klux Klan in America today... well, maybe to a white person who thinks of the Klan as a bunch of irrelevant corrupt racist hicks, it's funny.

Tell the same joke to a black man in Alabama in 1935, and it's not funny, because he knows damn well the Ku Klux Klan is a real, violent terrorist organization that will beat or murder him if he looks at them crosseyed.

Tell the joke to a black man in Alabama (or anywhere else in the country), and it may still not be funny... because he knows that the Ku Klux Klan was a real terrorist organization that would have cheerfully killed his grandfather. To him, it's not a joke, even if no harm was intended.

Thing is, a lot of women* still live in what is to sexual rights as the Jim Crow South was to racial rights.

They know that several percent of men in their society have committed or will commit rape, that many of them will never be punished for it, and that they themselves are not immune- simple bad luck could put them in a situation where they are vulnerable to that.

So yes, it's going to be a rather intimidating subject. And the potential to cause harm by making light of these facts is very real.
_____________________________

*Particularly women- because there are a lot more potential rapists out there who would see a woman as a target.

It's unclear to me to what extent legalized prostitution would reduce the rape rate, because it's unclear what fraction of rapists commit rape because they want sex, and what fraction do it because they want dominance, or because they believe they have a right to sex with a specific individual.

There are studies on the above, I'm quite sure. It is one of the main pushes for the regulation of prostitution here.

There's the result Panzersharkcat cited earlier: that when indoor prostitution was (accidentally) decriminalized in Rhode Island, rape rates fell by 31%, even though nothing else had changed.

There are a lot of other variables involved in the official rape statistics, as well. For example, in 2012, 19 times more rapes were reported per capita in the US than in Canada.

We can come up with a lot of separate explanations for why this is true. It seems very unlikely that any one thing could possibly cause the rape rate to increase by a factor of 20, though. For that matter, while American and Canadian society are quite different... they're not that different. The overall rate of violent crimes in the US tends to be 3-5 times higher than in Canada... but for rape the reported rate is 20 times higher.

Now, prostitution was very recently legalized in Canada, as far as I can tell- after these statistics were collected unless I've made a mistake or overlooked a passage in my limited readings. So legal prostitution in Canada shouldn't have affected those statistics.

But even if we factored in prostitution (which causes a 1/3 drop, apparently) and the overall lower crime rate in Canada (which causes a 3/4 drop in overall crime rates, more or less), we still would expect more like a 5:1 or 6:1 ratio in the reported rape rate, not a 19:1 ratio.

Which indicates even more, hidden factors in play- maybe the kinds of rape that still occur in Canada are disproportionately likely not to be reported to police. Maybe they have very successful work already done to discourage anyone from committing rape. Maybe there are other things I haven't thought of.

The thing is, while it can be a farce to ban the symbols of a act you want to stamp out in the wrong context, that doesn't mean it's always going to fail. Making it socially unacceptable to, for example, promote racism can make it easier to raise the next generation free of racism, for instance.

That's a given, my point is this is the wrong context.

Well, at this point we've discussed several different contexts for several different acts. Which one do you mean?

[Deebles]

Another voice for the "not OK" camp, for all the reasons given by Simon_Jester.

And for another small reason, which I'm not sure has been voiced (although I haven't read the whole thread): this was a contest agreed to between parties under fair terms.

It turned into a very one-sided contest because Germany were very strong while Brazil fell apart.

Analogies which draw from combat fit; you could talk about Brazil getting punch drunk, as if it were a boxing match (they looked it), or even that Germany broke them (they broke the will of the Brazilian team), or destroyed them (they destroyed a few reputations that day).

But "rape" does not fit, because it describes an act which is almost invariably carried out on despicably unfair terms, at a time and choosing of the aggressor.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think it misses the point a bit. Let me put it this way.

Have you ever heard of a car-jacking victim being accused of leading a car thief on? Maybe they were asking for it because they forgot to lock the doors and they had a really nice ride?

What the fuck are you talking about? Seriously?

I have said multiple times that I do not believe that victims should be blamed for rape. I have explained the purpose of the hypothetical I had proposed earlier, to which your post has absolutely no relevance whatsoever. I don't know if I am not making myself clear, or if you are just being an asshole.

Either address the hypothetical I had proposed or ignore it. I don't particularly care either way. But don't turn it into idiotic strawmen.

[Spekio]

Simon, I did not mean thought police in a legal way, I was trying to make an analogy between what was socially acceptable and thought police. Being legal to say something is not an argument on why it should be said.

Your point on being polite stands. I was trying to argue that there is a time and a place for everything, and context matters.

Still, I don't want to seem belligerent on a this topic, when I'm convinced it brings different meanings it brings to mind when uttered.

So I'll concede.