Posts by giovanni tiso
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Emma Hart,
There is no WIN
This should be made into a sign and placed above the gates of the Internet, Dante-style.
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
If it was a product of culture it would vary more between different cultures and I don't think it varies much at all.
Whether or not it varies is highly contentious, because the juridical and discursive notion of what constitutes rape varies significantly between countries. So it's not just a matter of comparing statistics about, say, sexual assault, for sexual assault means different things to different cultures and in different contexts. In my country, until not all that long ago, a husband forcing himself on his wife couldn't be accused of it.
And I'm not saying that it's all nurture either. It's just that using a bell curve analogy suggests to me that the propensity is fixed, and all a culture can do is reduce the actual performance of the act, whereas I think we can influence the propensity as well, by increasing understanding and lowering acceptance.
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Russell Brown,
What information was in the word "triggering" that wasn't already in the words "using mass rape as a weapon"? The word sometimes seems to have a role beyond its ostensible one.
Yes, you're quite right. Let's say that reading the article is even more triggering than my summation of it. But perhaps I used the term improperly.
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
It isn't about a culture causing them to rape. It is about a culture that has failed to figure out how to stop them raping. That's why I dislike the "rape culture" thing, it feels like explaining rape as part of the culture. Instead it's part of the behaviour of a portion of humanity.
And that behaviour is what, entirely genetic and not at all the product of culture? That seems far fetched to me.
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Paul Henry’s an easy target. But if you’re going to propose that he’s “the acceptable face of rape culture”, then you have to say the same thing, and more, about John Key sitting next to Tony bloody Veitch and scoring women out of 10.
Well, then let's do that. I don't know. Gheddafi (warning: immensely triggering link) is rumoured to be using mass rape as a weapon. He's also the guy who taught the prime minister of my country how to organise a bunga bunga party. Berlusconi's girls are sourced by two TV personalities from a circuit of festivals and beauty contests where young women go to be "discovered" in the hope of landing a television job. I wouldn't want to draw a line that leads directly to Key and Henry and Veitch, but policing the language of our public personalities is not a meaningless exercise.
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Megan Wegan,
I actually have more problem with mansplaining
I'll be happy never to hear that fucking idiotic word again. But hey, it's just me.
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Megan Wegan,
This all plays into rape culture – because our bodies aren’t our own. They are, on some level, public. Last night, I talked to a friend, who I hope will come on to expand on what I am going to say next. Talking about some of the comments upthread, and over at The Lady Garden, he was saying that by minimising the impact of rape other than male on female, you actually make rape on women lesser too. Because it’s as if if that by raping a woman, you take her magical special female essence, that only girls have.
And that essence makes them the custodians of everyone's morality, which is why they aren't allowed to be sexually agressive - or in some respects sexual at all. This wouldn't be a bad place to link the documentary __Women's Bodies__, about the portrayal of women in Italian media. 24 minutes, with subtitles.
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Perhaps, just perhaps, rapists won’t rape when we all live in a media culture where men like Henry and Michael Laws aren’t enabled – and rewarded – for derogating women like Stephanie Mills who don’t conform to their heterosexual white middle class cis-male privileged idea of how “real” women look, think and act.
I've heard a politician in Italy make that argument in a public forum not a month ago, using almost the exact same words (well, different names, obviously). For what it's worth.
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Kumara Republic,
in practice they just split readers into polar opposite camps?
If you call socially conservative politically retrograde white males who can't write for shit "polar opposites", then yes.
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Emma Hart,
What does he mean by "luxurious", because it clearly isn't "luxurious"?
That he was both a speechwriter and a strategist for Labour may go some way towards explaining the party's current predicament.