Posts by Morgan Nichol
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Jolisa,
Also, if a campaign that appears to say “Dudes, y’all might be rapists” is upsetting to blokes, then it’s probably working as a useful empathy check, by offering a tiny, tiny glimpse into the way women feel about dealing with the 24/7 message “Ladies, y’all might be raped.”
I couldn't agree more. Rape is a men's problem. Men are doing the rapes not women. The solution is to get men to change their behaviour, not women.
(I'm ignoring the statistically insignificant counter examples.)
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This might be misinterpreted as inconsistent with some of the things I just wrote (and if you think that you're making wrong assumptions), but I've always thought the "no means no" thing was backwards and that it should have been "only yes is yes".
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I’ve known Dylan for nearly 20 years. I think I know his character, and in my experience he (unlike me) doesn't show any disposition towards any kind of aggressive or dominant behavior. He is gentle.
Yes, perceptions can be misleading. There is no outward physical sign of being a rapist. I’m sure all those teachers and priests seemed to be gentle people to the parents who trusted their children to their care, too.
I don’t think any of my friends are rapists but it’s statistically unlikely that none of them have ever done anything rapey.
In fact, opinions expressed in this thread would see some of my past behaviour labeled as rapey. I’ve had sex with drunk women (for some degree of “drunk” anyway) a bunch of times. Usually I was also some degree of drunk. Who did the rape in those cases? Bloody no one did. Because situations and contexts are different. You can’t actually say that because a woman has had a drink she’s no longer capable of consenting to sexual contact. It’s a cliche, even. Meet a girl in a bar, hook up. Or go out with your partner of many years, have a few drinks, get home, do dirty things the second you get inside the door. This seems like normal behaviour to me. But sometimes men rape drunk women. And sometimes women are so drunk they’re no longer in control of their faculties. But you know.
When you’ve been with someone for long enough, you don’t always need to have a discussion. A touch can be enough to say yes. Or a look can be enough to say no. Or just knowing that everything you spoke about over dinner was about how fucking tired she is after a full on day at work. Is it unreasonable to check in with your partner? No of course not. Is it kind of weird to expect every single sex act to be preceded by some universal form of explicit check in? You will be disappointed if that’s what you expect all couples to do. In my experience first times are always preceded by words. But words aren't the only way we communicate with each other, given enough time together you don’t need many words to say a lot - there are many ways to say no and many ways to say yes.
But still, some men rape their wives. Some men rape their girlfriends. So how can you take my word for it that my drunken encounters weren’t rapey? Or that non explicitly said out loud consent was real consent? (I don’t know how you can, but I know, so that’s a bit of an impasse if we don’t agree.)
Dylan has three sons. He doesn’t want them to be lumped into the rapists group. He thinks he can raise them to respect other people like he respects other people. Even his toddler has the potential, one day, to hurt someone. Can you blame him for not wanting them labeled that way?
He thinks he knows a way to reduce some of the pain and damage that men do to women. Other people in the thread think he’s wrong.
I don’t know who’s right about that. But I see his point about not liking being labeled. Maybe if there were more words we could use. Finer granularity. Some way of expressing the nuance. But nuance doesn’t stop men from raping women.
Dylan lives in his own head, just like all the rest of us. We all have our prejudices. Our eyes don’t see. Our brains do. So everything is coloured by what we think we are. Dylan can’t see past his complete lack of the emotional elements he perceives as required to be "a rapist" because he sees, at least partly, with those very emotions. So naturally he doesn't want to be lumped in with the men who do more obviously have them.
But caring about mens feelings doesn’t feel like an important factor right now. Apparently it’s a thing for some men. Those “men’s rights” fuckbags for instance. Dylan isn’t one of those guys. He’s sincere.
(Christ, it’s all such small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.)
Women in short dresses (or whatever) are perceived as sluts* or asking for it, or some other bullshit that’s clearly not true. And they do not like it.
Dylan is perceived as being a potential rapist because of how he looks. He doesn't like it.
We’re all hurt, to greater or lesser extents, by all sorts of different things. One of these things is a serious problem that causes heart break and real pain the other barely rates an aside. But they’re still both true.
Let me tell you one disposition he does have: to argue the subtleties of some tangential point past the time anyone else is still interested. I can tell you that for damn sure, and I think you’ll probably believe me about that even if you don’t believe anything else I said.
* Since when has it ever been open season on “sluts” anyway?
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(Obviously I posted my comments from page 5 without knowing there was a dogpile/shitstorm going on on page 6 and 7. It's nice not being on the sharp end of the Public Address Pitchfork Brigade for once.)
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Megan Wegan,
We are taught at KINDERGARTEN to look out for strange men, and to “regulate our behaviour” to adjust for rapacious men.
I've been seen as that strange man who knows how many times. It's always bittersweet because when I see a woman walking in front of me through a park or down a dark street who is obviously disturbed by my presence (and it is obvious), she thinks I'm a threat, but I know that as long as I'm there literally nothing bad can possibly happen, no matter what kind of scumbag is around.
But there's no way for them to know that.
If only there was some kind of badge or something. (Unfortunately we now know that even a police badge doesn't guarantee that a man isn't going to be a raper.)
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
“Would you like it if someone did that to you?”
Golden Rule is tricky because if the thought going through the boy's head is "Would I like it if this girl fucked me right now?" then the answer will almost invariably be "YES I WOULD." but if you could convince them to have a slightly different thought "Would I like to be held down and penetrated by force right now?" then that might get more careful reasoning.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Tom Beard,
Listen Tom, you're an implausible target, but if you don't want to get raped you should stay out of the comments.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
I understand from discussing this with a lawyer that women jurors tend to be the least forgiving of rape complainants.
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If women don't want to get raped they shouldn't do stupidly provocative things like make feminist critiques of video games or have avatars with their faces or be all uppity about being a human and deserving of some modicum of respect or pretty much exist.
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At some point TVNZ will just have one channel, called TVNZ+∞, looping the same 42 minutes of pap (and 18 minutes of ads) for eternity.
I'm heartbroken for all the hard working, creative, and skilled people still at TVNZ. How disillusioned must they be?