Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 518093)

And let's be honest about why this word has become popular today. It is not intended to be a serious diagnosis. It is intended to operate as a shorthand accusation. It has bite. And it's designed to have bite. You hear it and you immediately think, "that's horrid." It allows the user to throw it into a conversation like a hand grenade. Instead of talking about the varieties of different ways people deny or downplay rape, you can call them all a part of "rape culture." Cazart! You've got everybody's attention.

Originally Posted by replaced_texan (Post 518100)

i am so angry.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 518048)

adder ggg thurgr[e]ed and you are engaging sebby on another vapid point?

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 518049)

I take it you didn't read the rest of the wikipedia article? The term has been around since the 70s.

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 518101)

At least the words I use while it's up there have definitions that I didn't completely pull out of my asshole and present them like they were tea and biscuits.

TM

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 518104)

I really don't know why I keep doing it.

Sebby: "I don't like this word because things in my head."

Everyone: "But it has an actual meaning that is useful."

Sebby: "No it doesn't because I think it means all this other shit."

Everyone: "But here's the definition. And here are examples of how it's used effectively."

Sebby: "I don't use it that way because I have assigned a bunch of other shit to it that no one else does and that's how it's used at my made-up cocktail parties too."

Everyone smashes head against wall again.

TM

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 518106)

Tea and biscuits are something. The definition you offered from Wikipedia is so broad one cannot really call it a definition so much as meme. Memes aren't words. Memes are fuzzy concepts, subject to various interpretations.

Ask ten people on the street to define tea and biscuits and you'll get ten quite similar answers. Ask ten people on the street to define rape culture and you'll get more word salad than there is actual salad in an Olive Garden.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 518071)

Strangely, you can grasp the criminal justice system generating unfair outcomes, but you also bristle at "racism" involving anything other than outright, expressed animus. Why do you have empathy for the unjustly imprisoned, but not for the unjustly withheld from opportunity? Is it first hand experience with the system, thus giving you a proximity you don't have on other issues. Or is it just the obvious involvement of the state (which is harder to see in other contexts)?

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 518078)

This is cask strength crazy.

Let's unpack this:

Your identity - as a cis, straight white man - prevents others from living their lives the way they want to live them.

I am an individual. I am not the entirety of white males. And I am not responsible for the behavior of anybody but myself. I do not care what anybody does, at all. Above all other virtues, I adhere most to live and let live. Judge no one for anything, lest ye be judged. And I fucking hate being judged, so I follow this rule absolutely.

Your presence, and the advantages you enjoy, causes others around you to have to adjust their behavior.

Yes, I've noticed all minorities part the room open for me when I enter. They all stand down. And the ladies all bow their heads.

Whether that's a person of color who knows they need to treat you with deference or a woman who does not know whether you will do her harm or a gay couple who does not know whether their existence will cause anger and violence from you.

Anyone silly enough to fear me because I'm a white male is wrongfully stereotyping me. I'm me. I'm not my skin color or sex. I'm not defined as part of a group. I'm nothing more than exactly the man sitting here, typing this. A person who is actually polite to a fault and respectful and tolerant of everyone he sees. If you fear me (this causes significant chuckling), that's on you, not me.

Anyone thinking that is as wrongheaded as a person fearing black kids walking behind him on the street simply because they are black. That person has the problem.

Because your (our) station in life means that we can and do act without fear of consequences others face, our existents prevents other from "liv[ing] as [they] feel like living."

That's half true. I don't worry about being pulled over as a black person is compelled to worry. That's a structural prejudice. But I derive no benefit from that. What is occurring there is a black person is being preyed upon by law enforcement. That has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with law enforcement acting in a predatory fashion. You're seeing a zero sum game, where I get advantage at cost to minorities. That is not the case.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 518102)

I think it's used to capture a variety of realities that otherwise aren't captured. The point is, it's horrid. If you have a problem with that, you have a problem with reality, not language.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 518084)

Dad was an alcoholic. That whole "I've never blacked out I just fell asleep line" is what he did every night for about 20 years before getting his shit half way together. I heard that line soooo much, often as an excuse for his inability to function at a point when it was expected (say, a high school graduation he "slept" through).

And with this post, I add myself to the roughly 100 million Americans triggered in some way by this BS.

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 518109)

I won't answer this for Sebby because it's impossible to pin him down on anything or have a halfway decent conversation with because he stands for nothing.

But for most people, the reason they see a difference is that in your prison example someone else is doing something unjust. It's very easy to separate oneself from that example because you are not actively* participating in injustice. When it comes to racism and privilege, everyone knows (sometimes it's deep, deep down) that white people have set up a system that benefits themselves and do not want to disturb the advantages that now exist absolutely everywhere. That knowledge and reality creates an automatic and emotional reaction when it is brought up.

It works the same when it comes to rape culture. If you're a man, you know you've been part of the problem. In order to avoid admitting this out loud or even to oneself in a meaningful way--and accepting the definition is an admission--you attack the words. You attack the people who use the term. You attack liberal arts academics. Everything, everyone, just not yourself.

I was definitely one of those shitty little assholes RT is referring to. I pinched butts, snapped bras. I thought I was flirting and that it was harmless. I watched other boys do it and get away with it. Hell, lots of time that behavior was not just excused, but rewarded. That's rape culture. And admitting that I was most definitely a part of it is difficult and uncomfortable. My small, liberal arts school taught me that that shit is never appropriate. No one should be subject to that kind of treatment. No one should feel like they can act that way with impunity.

I have grown as a person. I have come to terms with the many flaws I used to have and am working on the ones I still have. Those of us who can't, throw bullshit at people who are trying to define and call attention to the things we have accepted as a society that are harmful.

TM

*And yes, there are a myriad of arguments of how people actually involve themselves in perpetuating a racist criminal justice system, but that doesn't change the fact that people can easily remove themselves from fault and point at other people.

**Ha!

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 518098)

Particularly given what Jeff Flake just did.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 518107)

I can't assign anything to rape culture. It swallows all concepts around both rape itself and apologists for rape and sexual assault.

But I do know just a little bit about grammar, and when you add "culture" to a word, it usually means a culture that embraces a thing. "Car culture," "art culture," "gun culture," etc. So any person who's not involved in the academic communities that discuss "rape culture" would hear "rape culture" and think, Wait a minute... Is there a culture that's into rape? WTF? And then, of course, you'd swoop in with your totally clear definition from Wikipedia (the whole paragraph's worth of it, incorporating numerous discrete concepts) and say, "No, in this instance, we're using 'culture' to define people who apologize for sexual assault." The person hearing this would then assume, as I have here, That's pretty inartful. Why the fuck wouldn't you just call it what it is: Rape Denial, or Rape Apologism.

Apologism isn't a word, but never mind that. We're making up words here!

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 518109)

I won't answer this for Sebby because it's impossible to pin him down on anything or have a halfway decent conversation with because he stands for nothing.

But for most people, the reason they see a difference is that in your prison example someone else is doing something unjust. It's very easy to separate oneself from that example because you are not actively* participating in injustice. When it comes to racism and privilege, everyone knows (sometimes it's deep, deep down) that white people have set up a system that benefits themselves and do not want to disturb the advantages that now exist absolutely everywhere. That knowledge and reality creates an automatic and emotional reaction when it is brought up.

It works the same when it comes to rape culture. If you're a man, you know you've been part of the problem. In order to avoid admitting this out loud or even to oneself in a meaningful way--and accepting the definition is an admission--you attack the words. You attack the people who use the term. You attack liberal arts academics. Everything, everyone, just not yourself.

I was definitely one of those shitty little assholes RT is referring to. I pinched butts, snapped bras. I thought I was flirting and that it was harmless. I watched other boys do it and get away with it. Hell, lots of time that behavior was not just excused, but rewarded. That's rape culture. And admitting that I was most definitely a part of it is difficult and uncomfortable. My small, liberal arts school taught me that that shit is never appropriate. No one should be subject to that kind of treatment. No one should feel like they can act that way with impunity.

I have grown as a person. I have come to terms with the many flaws I used to have and am working on the ones I still have. Those of us who can't, throw bullshit at people who are trying to define and call attention to the things we have accepted as a society that are harmful.

TM

*And yes, there are a myriad of arguments of how people actually involve themselves in perpetuating a racist criminal justice system, but that doesn't change the fact that people can easily remove themselves from fault and point at other people.

**Ha!