11-Year-Old Gang-Raped. NYT posts controversial article about it.

I'm surprised no one posted this yet.

NYT wrote:

CLEVELAND, Tex.

AH.

NYT wrote:

The police investigation began shortly after Thanksgiving, when an elementary school student alerted a teacher to a lurid cellphone video that included one of her classmates.

The video led the police to an abandoned trailer, more evidence and, eventually, to a roundup over the last month of 18 young men and teenage boys on charges of participating in the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl in the abandoned trailer home, the authorities said.

18 guys? Everything's bigger in Texas I guess.

So there was a gang rape of a child, and it's terrible, and it's awful, and we all now know about it and it makes our day just a bit darker for knowing it.

Then you read on, and somewhere down the article, you get this.

NYT wrote:

Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands — known as the Quarters — said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.

Damn slutty 11-year-olds, dressing older and wearing makeup and chilling in the park with boys and getting raped. Tearing our community apart y'all! Think of the childre- OH.

NYT wrote:

“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” said Ms. Harrison, one of a handful of neighbors who would speak on the record. “How can you have an 11-year-old child missing down in the Quarters?”

Where were the boys mothers? What were their mothers thinking? How can you have a whole bunch of boys organize a gang rape of an 11-year-old kid?

Pressing questions, but I guess wondering how HER mother could let HER go out and ignoring the fact that rapist boys were preying on what appeared to be their friend is just more serious. Victims should know better, ya kno?

Quote :

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

Yes, they do. They raped someone. NO SHIT.

Quote :

The case has rocked this East Texas community to its core and left many residents in the working-class neighborhood where the attack took place with unanswered questions. Among them is, if the allegations are proved, how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?

I'm guessing their sex-offender tendencies, but that's just me.



Ok, I know that by posting this, wank will ensue, and yes, I know, this is Texas, but seriously, all the naysayers of a largely prevelent "rape culture", do you get now what we mean?

Dear freaking Lord...

Take one third slut-shaming (of an ELEVEN YEAR OLD, no less), one third "OMG THINK OF TEH MENZ", and one third rape-culture-certified-victim-blaming, throw them in a blender, and print it, and you would have this article. This douchetastic, horrific, mind-numbingly awful article.

What kind of a culture do we live in if we blame and eleven-year-old girl and her mother for the child's horrific gang rape and not, for example, the rapist douchebags themselves?!

(I'm not sure though, Jesus, if the "everything's bigger in Texas" joke is quite appropriate for this situation.)

The child who was raped was in no way responsible for what happened. The rapists were. I wish more people would acknowledge that the one(s) responsible for any crime are the perpetrators, not the victim(s).

Just because the girl wore makeup and looked older than her years did not make the rape okay. Rape is never okay, no matter who the victim is or what they look like. And there's a huge difference between a man mistaking a girl for being older than she is and hoping she's available and a man (or in this case, lots of men) committing rape. Being attracted to someone is normal. Committing a violent crime against them is not.

And let us not forget that rape is most frequently not about the sexual pleasure. It's about power, and getting off is secondary. In this case, you have 18 guys who (probably egged on by each other) decided to show their power over an elementary school-aged child. It doesn't matter how she dressed or how much makeup she wore. The rapists were the ones in the wrong. As to what she was doing in the area--visiting friends--isn't it a normal, healthy thing for a child to want to spend time with their friends? How could this, in any, way, shape, or form, make rape okay?

My sister lived in Cleveland for about a month or two several years ago. Redneck central. The attitude doesn't surprise me.

Jesus. wrote:

Where were the boys mothers? What were their mothers thinking? How can you have a whole bunch of boys organize a gang rape of an 11-year-old kid?

Hate to break it to you but there's a slight difference between your teenager popping off for a few hours and your eleven-year-old.

Jesus. wrote:

Pressing questions, but I guess wondering how HER mother could let HER go out and ignoring the fact that rapist boys were preying on what appeared to be their friend is just more serious. Victims should know better, ya kno?

Uh, nobody's blaming the victim here. They're going after her mother for leaving her eleven-year-old unattended for hours at a time while she wandered off to a horrible part of town and got gang-raped. There are reasons you shouldn't leave children unattended until they get to a certain age and the worst happened here. There's a difference between saying 'what the fuck she's eleven her mother should have been watching her where the fuck was her mother' and 'it's her fault for dressing like a slut'. This is a horrible thing that happened, yes, but one that could have been easily avoided with the presence of a responsible parent.

Jesus. wrote:

Quote :

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

Yes, they do. They raped someone. NO SHIT.

And no one, inside or outside of the article, is disagreeing with you! HOLY SHIT.

Hadiya Tannous wrote:

Take one third slut-shaming (of an ELEVEN YEAR OLD, no less), one third "OMG THINK OF TEH MENZ", and one third rape-culture-certified-victim-blaming, throw them in a blender, and print it, and you would have this article. This douchetastic, horrific, mind-numbingly awful article.

Where are you seeing any of this? Seriously. Because all I can find that MIGHT be something like that is:

Quote :

The case has rocked this East Texas community to its core and left many residents in the working-class neighborhood where the attack took place with unanswered questions. Among them is, if the allegations are proved, how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?

And I've got to say, expressing shock that someone so close to home could do such a horrible thing =/= excusing their actions.

PS/Edit: Jesus. nice new avatar!

TheHedonist wrote:

Jesus. wrote:

Where were the boys mothers? What were their mothers thinking? How can you have a whole bunch of boys organize a gang rape of an 11-year-old kid?

Hate to break it to you but there's a slight difference between your teenager popping off for a few hours and your eleven-year-old.

True, but some of these kids were in Junior high. Not all of them were teens.

Jesus. wrote:

Pressing questions, but I guess wondering how HER mother could let HER go out and ignoring the fact that rapist boys were preying on what appeared to be their friend is just more serious. Victims should know better, ya kno?

TheHedonist wrote:

Uh, nobody's blaming the victim here. They're going after her mother for leaving her eleven-year-old unattended for hours at a time while she wandered off to a horrible part of town and got gang-raped. There are reasons you shouldn't leave children unattended until they get to a certain age and the worst happened here. There's a difference between saying 'what the fuck she's eleven her mother should have been watching her where the fuck was her mother' and 'it's her fault for dressing like a slut'. This is a horrible thing that happened, yes, but one that could have been easily avoided with the presence of a responsible parent.

The way that this article is written, it's focusing on what could have been done by the victim and their family to prevent this, nothing on the boys. It's written in such a way that it is skewed in the boy's favor. No one should let their 11 year old wander off for hours and she should have been supervised. But the fact of the matter is, it WAS written in this article that she was dressing like a slut and hung out with teen boys. And then presented with "Where was her mother?" My question is, where in this article is the blame on the men who raped her? Where are the parents of the boys saying "If I knew they were rapists, I'd keep better tabs on them?" Why is there "They have to live with this for the rest of their lives." presented by a nurse sympathetic to them, and not a "She will have to love with this forever." present by someone sympathetic to her?

It's the WAY the article it written. Slut shaming at it's best.

Jesus. wrote:

Quote :

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

Yes, they do. They raped someone. NO SHIT.

TheHedonist wrote:

And no one, inside or outside of the article, is disagreeing with you! HOLY SHIT.

See above. It's the WAY this story is presented, and the attitudes the natives have taken. There's more behind the words than I think you're willing to see.

TheHedonist wrote:

PS/Edit: Jesus. nice new avatar!

Thanks :D Gotta love people dying in eachother's arms

I wish I could send this article to my eleven year old sister with a note attached saying "SEE? THIS IS WHY MOM DOESN'T LET YOU HANG AROUND HIGH SCHOOL BOYS!"

Because really, when it's a group of older guys and a younger girl, bad shit usually happens.

That poor girl, I hope she manages to get help. Though thank god for the teacher who didn't blow the whole thing off.

TheHedonist, the reason "OMG WHERE WAS HER MOTHER WHY WOULD YOU LET YOUR ELEVEN YEAR OLD WANDER OFF FOR HOURS" pisses me off is that it's treating rape like an accident, like falling into a pool of water and drowning. It removes the perpetrators from the equation. She wasn't gang-raped because she was unsupervised. She was gang-raped because a bunch of assfaced shitsuckers decided to rape her. That they didn't kidnap her (at first) counts for absolutely nothing with me. The fact that she "dressed older" is irrelevant. If she was 22 it would be irrelevant.

Cyberwulf wrote:

assfaced shitsuckers.

Can I marry your insults?

Also: Hedonist, can you explain in your next post why exactly you don't believe in rape culture and why you don't think this article exemplifies rape culture. I'm honestly curious about how you don't seem to understand such an obvious example of rape culture.

Does having a gun make it easier to kill people? Yes it does. Did the lack of supervision provide an opportunity to this pack of jackals to rape an 11 year old? It certainly didn't hurt. Should that make any difference? Of course not.

That said: Taking it as given that a determined rapist will find a victim, and that the rapist will prefer an 'easy target' as opposed to a 'hard target' and that you or you loved ones are possible targets, what DO you do?

I think the two schools of thought are 1) You shouldn't have to do anything. They are the bad guys, all fault lies with them and 2) There are bad guys out there. Don't make it easy for them. While I agree with the idealism of the first, reality seems to require the second approach.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Also: Hedonist, can you explain in your next post why exactly you don't believe in rape culture and why you don't think this article exemplifies rape culture. I'm honestly curious about how you don't seem to understand such an obvious example of rape culture.

Because he might be an lolbertarian.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Also: Hedonist, can you explain in your next post why exactly you don't believe in rape culture and why you don't think this article exemplifies rape culture. I'm honestly curious about how you don't seem to understand such an obvious example of rape culture.

As I understand Hedonist's stance it isn't so much that there is no rape culture, but that it is not the prevailing idea of society as a whole. From the sounds of it Cleveland, Texas is just the kind of place where rape culture would still be the prevailing school of thought: A town of 9,000 in one of the most conservative states in the country, and as described in this very thread "redneck central".

It is hardly what I would call proof that all of western culture still holds to the ideals of victim blaming and rape culture, only that there are some places where such schools of thought still stand.

Here's what I want to know: if rape culture is so prevalent, if it's permeated every facet of society as one side of the wank here argues, then why did this girl's mother let her out of sight and unattended for so long not only into the rape culture, but in "redneck central" where the men's attitudes towards women should be even more obvious?

Why is there zero responsibility with the populace to prepare for it, to take preventive measures against being victimized by it, and to have any goddamn common sense about it? The argument here is always "it's the rapist's responsibility not to rape." That's all well and good, and in a perfect world it would be the standard everyone is held to, but the Rape Culture camp seems intent on believing that morality can save rape victims if morality had a more solid grounding in society. This is ignoring the reality that it doesn't and will not for our lifetime, the lifetimes of our children, and many more after that. Why is it that rape prevention is about pushing a fantasy where rapists, people who by definition do not care about morality, would be stopped by morality instead of pushing for people to avoid actions that make victimization easier?

Knowing I would've been literally lynched if I told anyone in highschool I'm gay didn't make me want to do it because they shouldn't assault me for it, it made me not want to do it because they would. (inb4 "that's different" and "males are never victims.")

Alhazred wrote:

Here's what I want to know: if rape culture is so prevalent, if it's permeated every facet of society as one side of the wank here argues, then why did this girl's mother let her out of sight and unattended for so long not only into the rape culture, but in "redneck central" where the men's attitudes towards women should be even more obvious?

Why is there zero responsibility with the populace to prepare for it, to take preventive measures against being victimized by it, and to have any goddamn common sense about it? The argument here is always "it's the rapist's responsibility not to rape." That's all well and good, and in a perfect world it would be the standard everyone is held to, but the Rape Culture camp seems intent on believing that morality can save rape victims if morality had a more solid grounding in society. This is ignoring the reality that it doesn't and will not for our lifetime, the lifetimes of our children, and many more after that. Why is it that rape prevention is about pushing a fantasy where rapists, people who by definition do not care about morality, would be stopped by morality instead of pushing for people to avoid actions that make victimization easier?

Right, the only people who are victims are the ones who let themselves be. You hear that, ladies, you're the world's whipping boy because you allow yourselves to be abused and ignored.

Tell me, what is your solution for equal rights for women? Have them all get sex changes to prevent their uterus being declare state property?

Quote :

Right, the only people who are victims are the ones who let themselves be. You hear that, ladies, you're the world's whipping boy because you allow yourselves to be abused and ignored.

Nowhere did I say that. Absolutely nowhere.

I want to know how denying reality helps any woman, or any minority, right now. What does "it should be like this" accomplish when pro-active deterrence against people who don't care what it should be like can prevent something like this incident?

If I went by your response, I could only assume women are completely irrational and incapable of decision-making based on anything other than wishful thinking. Fortunately, I don't tend to jump to conclusions based on assumptions.

Don't engage this douche at all. S/He clings to the fallacy that there's a clear, narrow definition of rape, and that monsters are the only people who don't find rape abhorrent.

Cy is still clinging to the tried and true tactic of putting words in other peoples' mouths so she can have more wank material, I see.

Then again, I think I'm the only one around here who's ever gotten Cyberdildo to plead with her Bieber-esque fanbase to completely ignore me; for her to declare someone off-limits instead of engaging in her usual vomit of caps-lock and terrible grammar in an attempt to further enlarge her victim complex, I'm clearly doing something right.

Alhazred wrote:

Quote :

Right, the only people who are victims are the ones who let themselves be. You hear that, ladies, you're the world's whipping boy because you allow yourselves to be abused and ignored.

Nowhere did I say that. Absolutely nowhere.

I want to know how denying reality helps any woman, or any minority, right now. What does "it should be like this" accomplish when pro-active deterrence against people who don't care what it should be like can prevent something like this incident?

If I went by your response, I could only assume women are completely irrational and incapable of decision-making based on anything other than wishful thinking. Fortunately, I don't tend to jump to conclusions based on assumptions.

Similarly, we never said that women shouldn't go to any measures to protect themselves and be careful ever. Also, no one has ever said men can't be victims, that's some dumbass strawman you and some of the people have built (because focusing on women and excluding men means we all hate men gaiz, right?).

However, the problem we have is that all means of rape prevention are placed on the victim and all our forms of rape prevention assume that all rapists are shady strangers that sit in the back of a bar or in some dark alley, twirling their eeeeeeeeviiiiilllllll mustaches and cackling as they eye up their next victim. This is simply not the case.

Rapists are usually someone the victim knows, and, contrary to popular belief, rapists can be "good people". Our society assumes and teaches otherwise, we teach that rapists are strange monsters, there are warning signs of who might be a rapist, and that rape is practically a random accident that can be prevented in most cases.

We teach people all about the types that will hold you at knife point in an alley, or the guy who will slip a roofy in your drink, but not so much about the guy who gets the girl so drunk she can't say "no", or the guy that pressures a girl into sex by telling her that he'll leave her if she doesn't. People are more likely to see these behaviors as ok, and people who do these things are less likely to see themselves as a rapist, because rapists are inhuman monsters with no redeemable qualities that attack you with a knife.

TheHedonist and you both assume that when we talk about rape culture, we think that our culture is dominated by neanderthal rednecks stalking around going "hurrrr bitch deserved it go make me a sammich." It's all more subtle than that. It's everything I said above, it's rape jokes, it's the idea that rape is somehow about the sex, it's the belief that a 12 year old kid that had sex with his teacher is "lucky", it's people who hope prisoners get "ass raped in jail".

Quote :

with her Bieber-esque fanbase

You're real cute, trying to invalidate our arguments by characterizing anyone against you as someone who mindlessly worships Cyberwulf and blindly repeats whatever she says just because she says it, and not because they've done their own research and come to similar conclusions.

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Similarly, we never said that women shouldn't go to any measures to protect themselves and be careful ever. Also, no one has ever said men can't be victims, that's some dumbass strawman you and some of the people have built (because focusing on women and excluding men means we all hate men gaiz, right?).

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NYT wrote:

“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” said Ms. Harrison, one of a handful of neighbors who would speak on the record. “How can you have an 11-year-old child missing down in the Quarters?”

Where were the boys mothers? What were their mothers thinking? How can you have a whole bunch of boys organize a gang rape of an 11-year-old kid?

Pressing questions, but I guess wondering how HER mother could let HER go out and ignoring the fact that rapist boys were preying on what appeared to be their friend is just more serious. Victims should know better, ya kno?

So this isn't Jesus sarcastically shoving aside the idea that the girl's mother being a responsible parent could've prevented the rape in favor of a chance to wank about lol slut shaming?

Again, at what point is "people who want to rape someone shouldn't do it" an excuse for a parent to let an 11-year-old girl out of her supervision?

Quote :

What kind of a culture do we live in if we blame and eleven-year-old girl and her mother for the child's horrific gang rape and not, for example, the rapist douchebags themselves?!

This isn't completely ignoring the irresponsible parenting going on?

Quote :

No one should let their 11 year old wander off for hours and she should have been supervised. But the fact of the matter is, it WAS written in this article that she was dressing like a slut and hung out with teen boys. And then presented with "Where was her mother?"

And here's Jesus admitting the mother is at fault, in stark contrast to the tone of the OP. So, at this point, the wank about the actual incident is much less justified, and the incident itself is becoming a vehicle to attack the tone of the article.

I'm all for the article having more vox pops that would say "those guys shouldn't have done that." Expressing this critique of the reporting is much better served by saying "the article should have more vox pops that would say 'those guys shouldn't have done that.'" Instead, Jesus flies into a rage at the suggestion irresponsible parenting could've helped enable the rapists because the standard femiloony response around here is to be surprised when people behave as they do instead of as they should.

If that's not enough, the end of her OP sums up the entire thing as a tool to wave at the rest of us for saying "You see? Rape culture! Just try to deny it this time!"

Which is particularly hilarious because, much like other threads on similar subjects, no one is actually denying that there are plenty of asshats in the world, in any country, who buy into the notion that a rape victim is solely at fault for their rape, and at least one response is explicitly saying the opposite. The problem is the feminists here are like McCarthy and instantly fall back on an "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality the instant someone suggests preventive measures, on the basis that since men shouldn't rape, women shouldn't have to be conscious about things like the part of town they're in, or the people they're around, or whether or not their clothes will encourage a rapist to look at them as a potential grab.

What I find particularly interesting is that in my original response, I not only didn't deny rape culture exists, I discussed it as a danger to normal people, but as something normal people can take precautions against.

The immediate response I got was a sarcastic quip about how I was saying that the only people who are victims are people who let themselves be victims, which I did not say. At no point did I say it is always possible to get out of a bad situation, nor did I say it is always possible to predict a bad situation will happen if a certain choice is made.

So, I was implicitly admitting I think rape culture exists, I was discussing rape culture, but as soon as I suggest that rape culture is not the dominant viewpoint of the entire population and that other factors besides the expectation that rapists shouldn't rape can save some rape victims (in this case, if the girl's mother was a responsible parent) I'm the enemy. This further proves that the rape wank is less about the rape and more about the wank.

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Similarly, we never said that women shouldn't go to any measures to protect themselves and be careful ever. Also, no one has ever said men can't be victims, that's some dumbass strawman you and some of the people have built (because focusing on women and excluding men means we all hate men gaiz, right?).

Considering all of you answer any criticism with nothing but insinuations that anyone who doesn't agree with you is denying rapists have any responsibility and women are solely responsible for being Not Raped, the strawman would seem to have a point.

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You're real cute, trying to invalidate our arguments by characterizing anyone against you as someone who mindlessly worships Cyberwulf and blindly repeats whatever she says just because she says it, and not because they've done their own research and come to similar conclusions.

I gave up on the idea that any of this is caused by anything other than a clique mentality around Cyberdildo and her grammar-killing troll rants at about the time Sutremaine described her as "the kind of feminist we can't ignore" and how this "makes us uncomfortable."

Waffles was the kind of feminist I couldn't ignore, too.

Alhazred wrote:

femiloony


Cyberdildo

Dude seriously are you five years old

ANYWAY, what I wanted to discuss:

Quote :

Considering all of you answer any criticism with nothing but insinuations that anyone who doesn't agree with you is denying rapists have any responsibility and women are solely responsible for being Not Raped, the strawman would seem to have a point.

Wait, what? How does that argument imply men can't be victims? I'm not seeing the connection here, even if you don't agree with the argument - we've said, frequently, that people who rape men are as bad as those who rape women.

Alhazred wrote:

So this isn't Jesus sarcastically shoving aside the idea that the girl's mother being a responsible parent could've prevented the rape in favor of a chance to wank about lol slut shaming?

lolno.

Why doesn't the article talk about the rapist's parents? It's a valid question and it in no way excludes the possibility that maybe the mom was neglectful. Nowhere do we see the article asking about the rapists behavior, asking where their parents are, the article is focusing entirely on the girls behavior and how the victim and her mother could have changed their behavior to avoid this happening.

As I said above, this article treats rape like a random accident that you can prevent by wearing your Anti-Rape Helmet and carrying a can of Rapist - B - Gone.

That's our problem with the article.

Quote :

This isn't completely ignoring the irresponsible parenting going on?

You aren't being willfully dense just for the purpose of argument?

Quote :

Instead, Jesus flies into a rage at the suggestion irresponsible parenting could've helped enable the rapists because the standard femiloony response around here is to be surprised when people behave as they do instead of as they should.

Because the victim's parents shouldn't be the main issue. The way the victim dressed and acted shouldn't be the issue.

Quote :

Which is particularly hilarious because, much like other threads on similar subjects, no one is actually denying that there are plenty of asshats in the world, in any country, who buy into the notion that a rape victim is solely at fault for their rape, and at least one response is explicitly saying the opposite

To which I say that you seem to think rape culture means our society is dominated by neanderthal rednecks blah blah blah. I said this above, and I notice that it seems you didn't read that.

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The problem is the feminists here are like McCarthy and instantly fall back on an "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality the instant someone suggests preventive measures, on the basis that since men shouldn't rape, women shouldn't have to be conscious about things like the part of town they're in, or the people they're around, or whether or not their clothes will encourage a rapist to look at them as a potential grab.

Only that's not what we say at all.

Also, preventative measures are all nice and stuff, but things like not dressing "like a slut" or watching your drink or not going out late at night will only really help prevent against the stranger in the alley with a knife or the creepy guy in the bar with the roofy. Which, in the realm of rape, are pretty atypical cases.

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What I find particularly interesting is that in my original response, I not only didn't deny rape culture exists, I discussed it as a danger to normal people, but as something normal people can take precautions against.

Yet your insistence on rape prevention lying in the hands of the victim is a part of rape culture.

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Considering all of you answer any criticism with nothing but insinuations that anyone who doesn't agree with you is denying rapists have any responsibility and women are solely responsible for being Not Raped, the strawman would seem to have a point.

Only that's not what we do at all. Right here, in this post right here and my post above, I answered your criticism with my own points and thoughts and didn't insinuate that you're denying rapists have any responsibility and women are solely responsible.

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I gave up on the idea that any of this is caused by anything other than a clique mentality around Cyberdildo and her grammar-killing troll rants at about the time Sutremaine described her as "the kind of feminist we can't ignore" and how this "makes us uncomfortable."

*sigh*

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Dude seriously are you five years old

No, I just don't take the so-called feminists on the board seriously.

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Why doesn't the article talk about the rapist's parents? It's a valid question and it in no way excludes the possibility that maybe the mom was neglectful. Nowhere do we see the article asking about the rapists behavior, asking where their parents are, the article is focusing entirely on the girls behavior and how the victim and her mother could have changed their behavior to avoid this happening.

As I said above, this article treats rape like a random accident that you can prevent by wearing your Anti-Rape Helmet and carrying a can of Rapist - B - Gone.

That's our problem with the article.

None of which I disagree with, which is probably, maybe, why I said this:

Quote :

I'm all for the article having more vox pops that would say "those guys shouldn't have done that." Expressing this critique of the reporting is much better served by saying "the article should have more vox pops that would say 'those guys shouldn't have done that.'" Instead, Jesus flies into a rage at the suggestion irresponsible parenting could've helped enable the rapists because the standard femiloony response around here is to be surprised when people behave as they do instead of as they should.

If that's not enough, the end of her OP sums up the entire thing as a tool to wave at the rest of us for saying "You see? Rape culture! Just try to deny it this time!"

Again, all the wank is just that; wank. This isn't about the subject matter, it's about your victim complexes.

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Because the victim's parents shouldn't be the main issue. The way the victim dressed and acted shouldn't be the issue.

I agree with this, and I have stated several times that I agree with this. What you constantly ignore is what I say each time in addition to this: just because it shouldn't be an issue doesn't mean it won't be an issue. No matter how many times you cry "SLUT SHAMING!" and "PATRIARCHY!" like those are clever buzzwords, it will be an issue.

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To which I say that you seem to think rape culture means our society is dominated by neanderthal rednecks blah blah blah. I said this above, and I notice that it seems you didn't read that.

It's clearly what the wank brigade thinks. Knight said this above, and no one even bothered answering. TheHedonist says it in
this thread and promptly gets jumped on by Electron Blue who can clearly see that rape culture is everywhere because she sees this story omg every day, which is both anectdata and an insubstantial number inflated by victim complex. Then Cy comes in with her usual all-caps nonsense about how the opposing argument is clearly wrong because SHE SAYS SO IN ALL-CAPS.

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Yet your insistence on rape prevention lying in the hands of the victim is a part of rape culture.

At no point have I "insisted" rape prevention lies in the hands of the victim. I've said potential victims can sometimes take effective preventive measures. I don't know how to make that more clear. I don't know why you see that as "rape victims could always have done something to avoid being raped if they just tried harder." This further reinforces my belief that none of you care about anything more than feeding your victim complex.

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Only that's not what we do at all. Right here, in this post right here and my post above, I answered your criticism with my own points and thoughts and didn't insinuate that you're denying rapists have any responsibility and women are solely responsible.

As noted in the quote above this, you've done exactly that.

Quote :

*sigh*

So Cy's grammar genocide (to say nothing of her ridiculously holier-than-thou attitude) is an appropriate way of conducting one-self in a debate? The fact that you see nothing wrong with her behavior (not even getting into any of the subject matter, just the behavior that's implicitly condoned while I get called out just for name-calling) says a lot about the mentality behind all the wank.

Alhazred wrote:

No, I just don't take the so-called feminists on the board seriously.

No, it's just all you have are insults.

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Again, all the wank is just that; wank. This isn't about the subject matter, it's about your victim complexes.

Yet you were the one who started this argument.

You continue to insist that everyone who disagrees with you just isn't seeing things clearly and is crazy and/or has ulterior motives.

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I agree with this, and I have stated several times that I agree with this. What you constantly ignore is what I say each time in addition to this: just because it shouldn't be an issue doesn't mean it won't be an issue. No matter how many times you cry "SLUT SHAMING!" and "PATRIARCHY!" like those are clever buzzwords, it will be an issue.

In your first post on the matter, you implied that part of the responsibility for rape happening lies with the victim. So you really don't agree with me, because I believe that full responsibility for rape lies with the rapist.

It isn't just shouldn't. It's not an issue. It's not about what the victim was wearing or what time of night she was up or what streets she was walking down, it's about the rapist who raped her.

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It's clearly what the wank brigade thinks. Knight said this above, and no one even bothered answering. TheHedonist says it in
this thread and promptly gets jumped on by Electron Blue who can clearly see that rape culture is everywhere because she sees this story omg every day, which is both anectdata and an insubstantial number inflated by victim complex. Then Cy comes in with her usual all-caps nonsense about how the opposing argument is clearly wrong because SHE SAYS SO IN ALL-CAPS.

Again, no. I explained above what rape culture is and what we're arguing. Actually read my posts and stop propping up strawmen in their place and you'll actually see that.

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At no point have I "insisted" rape prevention lies in the hands of the victim. I've said potential victims can sometimes take effective preventive measures. I don't know how to make that more clear. I don't know why you see that as "rape victims could always have done something to avoid being raped if they just tried harder." This further reinforces my belief that none of you care about anything more than feeding your victim complex.

But that's not what I'm saying your argument is. I understand your argument, but I'm saying preventive measures aren't going to help, and that placing rape prevention emphasis on the victim allows dangerous cultural notions of rape as a random accident perpetrated by monsters in alleys, allowing victim blaming, and all the while not really doing anything to actually prevent rape.

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So Cy's grammar genocide (to say nothing of her ridiculously holier-than-thou attitude) is an appropriate way of conducting one-self in a debate? The fact that you see nothing wrong with her behavior (not even getting into any of the subject matter, just the behavior that's implicitly condoned while I get called out just for name-calling) says a lot about the mentality behind all the wank.

For someone who's always complaining about being made into a strawman and having everyone completely misrepresent their posts, you sure do enjoy making your opponents strawmen and/or misrepresenting their posts.

I love the assumption that

A: I'm a woman
B: I have a victim complex
C: I 'jumped down the throat' of TheHedonist despite being calm and measured in my response
D: Alhazred is capable of cold-reading through words on a screen
E: Everyone who disagrees with Alhazred is crazy

It's all so wonderfully flawed. Just because I didn't put up statistics on the cases I've seen doesn't mean I'm not allowed to see trends, dude. I never claimed to be reporting rigid scientific data, hence the 'seems' in my response. Your insistence that everyone is crazy and not reasoning when they argue is both insulting and ignorant, as if everyone should agree with you if all their neuroses are in order.

Also, "so-called feminists"? Fuck that. People who stand up for women and try to see things from their point of view and do their best to ensure that they are not blamed for being raped are feminists. Just because you disagree with them doesn't make them un-feminist.

Cyberwulf wrote:

TheHedonist, the reason "OMG WHERE WAS HER MOTHER WHY WOULD YOU LET YOUR ELEVEN YEAR OLD WANDER OFF FOR HOURS" pisses me off is that it's treating rape like an accident, like falling into a pool of water and drowning. It removes the perpetrators from the equation. She wasn't gang-raped because she was unsupervised.

Except, well, she was raped at least partially because she was unsupervised. If her mother had been a more attentive parent she would not have been allowed to wander off and get herself into such a horrible situation. I don't see why blaming the perpetrators and acknowledging the fact that this wouldn't have happened had she been under the appropriate adult supervision are mutually exclusive.

Cyberwulf wrote:

She was gang-raped because a bunch of assfaced shitsuckers decided to rape her. That they didn't kidnap her (at first) counts for absolutely nothing with me. The fact that she "dressed older" is irrelevant. If she was 22 it would be irrelevant.

All of this I agree with.

I never said this:

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Also: Hedonist, can you explain in your next post why exactly you don't believe in rape culture and why you don't think this article exemplifies rape culture. I'm honestly curious about how you don't seem to understand such an obvious example of rape culture.

But I did say:

Knight wrote:

As I understand Hedonist's stance it isn't so much that there is no rape culture, but that it is not the prevailing idea of society as a whole. From the sounds of it Cleveland, Texas is just the kind of place where rape culture would still be the prevailing school of thought: A town of 9,000 in one of the most conservative states in the country, and as described in this very thread "redneck central".

It is hardly what I would call proof that all of western culture still holds to the ideals of victim blaming and rape culture, only that there are some places where such schools of thought still stand.

This. All of this.

Electron Blue wrote:

C: I 'jumped down the throat' of TheHedonist despite being calm and measured in my response

Agreed, I was the one who was bitchy there and I admitted to and apologized for it. I don't even know where you got that claim, Al.


To broach a new topic here, doesn't the topic mention that some of the perpetrators were in middle school students? And that others were high-school students and full-feldged adults? And weren't some of the sex acts filmed? Because that adds a whole new level of wrong. Aren't the male middle school students among the abused here too? Clearly the girl got the worst of it but from what I'm seeing there were filmed sex acts between children, which makes the boys victims as well.

Victims as well as perpetrators of the crime, not in lieu of.