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July 17, 2014 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
13:18
Steve Shives Demolishes Rape Culture!
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Hey, here are five stupid things I've noticed about rape culture.
That we do not live in a rape culture.
I know that's only one thing, but it does seem to cover, well, everything.
So I'm gonna guess that basically you're nitpicking when you've got five.
Denial by deconstruction.
Do you mean explaining why it is wrong?
I've noticed a tendency among people who are skeptical of the notion of rape culture to deconstruct the term in an attempt to define it as literally as possible.
This is called critical thinking, you idiot.
Rape culture?
You mean a culture that approves of rape?
Well, the Wikipedia article says that that's basically what it is, yeah.
And I'm sure the feminists would be all over this if that's not what it meant.
Pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes.
So don't tell me.
It's either that we're not living in a rape culture or you've got a special definition of rape culture.
But in our culture, rapists are ostracized and held criminally responsible for their actions.
We obviously can't have a rape culture.
Go on, let's hear your magical different definition of rape culture.
Tell me on how normal and pervasive it is here.
Go on.
But the term rape culture doesn't refer strictly to a culture where rape is viewed upon generally as normal and acceptable behavior.
No, that's actually exactly what it means, Steve.
Almost word for word, in fact.
Rape culture actually refers to the accumulation of beliefs, attitudes, and mores of dogmatic religious feminism.
I'm not interested in joining a cult.
Ergo, I will not be entertaining your stupid definitions.
That encourage people to associate sexuality with violence, for instance.
That is an awful example.
Or to condone or at least minimize the seriousness of sexual assaults.
Which clearly doesn't apply to us in the West, does it, dumbass?
We're in the middle of some sort of unfounded rape hysteria, where feminism has whipped women up into such a paranoid frenzy that they think there is a rapist behind every corner.
Nobody is condoning it.
Or to view things like rape and other forms of sexual violence as inevitable facts of life that we just have to deal with.
This is the most stupid definition of rape culture that you have espoused so far.
You are suggesting something that has been common to humanity since the dawn of humanity and in almost every other animal species is not something inevitable that we just have to live with.
You will never put an end to rape.
It will never ever happen.
And these various beliefs, attitudes, and mores can manifest themselves in a variety of forms.
South Africa is a rape culture.
Where one in four men say that they have raped someone and half of those men say they have done it repeatedly and they do it as an exercise in male bonding.
That is a rape culture.
According to the very well-sourced article on Wikipedia, apparently in US colleges, 90% of the rapes are committed by 3% of the male population.
Do you see the difference, Steve?
One is probably as high as it's ever going to get, and the other is probably as low as it's ever going to get.
Also, there has been a significant pushback against the concept of rape culture.
Caroline Hitchens, for example, says, though rape is certainly a serious problem, there is no evidence that it is considered a cultural norm.
On college campuses, obsessing with eliminating rape culture has led to censorship and hysteria.
I'm saying this now, Steve, because I've just quickly looked ahead and noticed you're going to run the full gamut of stupid in this video.
So I thought I'd get this in here and say, there is no such fucking thing.
Objectively, there is no rape culture.
Your stupid definitions are bullshit.
Let's continue.
For instance, victim blaming.
Of course.
One of the most familiar examples of victim blaming is the insistence that women who dress in sexually provocative clothes are increasing their risk of being raped in the same way that a homeowner known to have a brand new big screen TV is increasing his risk of being robbed by not locking his front door.
Props for not misrepresenting the argument.
I'm genuinely quite impressed with that.
The crucial detail missed by most of the people who say something like this is that neither the rape victim in the sexy dress nor the homeowner who has been robbed have done anything wrong.
Oh my goodness.
Criminals don't commit crimes based on persons' karma.
They commit crimes based on opportunity.
What a fucking surprise.
And yet it's the potential rape victim who's being presented with this analogy, not the potential theft victim.
That's because homeowners with big televisions don't say, teach thieves not to steal, don't teach me not to leave my door unlocked.
They all lock their doors, you idiot.
The suggestion that rape should be dealt with by encouraging women to dress more conservatively doesn't deserve to be taken any more seriously than the suggestion that a rash of break-ins be dealt with by encouraging everybody to lock their doors at night.
Even though locking your doors and dressing conservatively both have positive effects on the outcome you desire.
But there's another side to this, and it has to do not with victim blaming, but victim playing.
This is a new one on me.
I look forward to hearing about it.
According to some who are skeptical of the concept, the true victims of rape culture aren't women, but men who are being broadly painted as potential rapists.
Well, if rape culture doesn't actually exist, and we've shown that it doesn't, at least in the West, and you are using it as a stick to beat men with, then I would say that yes, they are indeed the primary victims of rape culture.
Because the only reason for wanting to educate men about issues like consent or objectification of women is because women secretly believe that any given man is only two or three decisions away from becoming a rapist, obviously.
I have a bowl of MMs, Steve.
Only 10% are poisoned.
Another common complaint is that raising awareness about the issues involved with rape culture will only embolden vindictive women to falsely accuse men of rape out of revenge or a desire to exercise the mad misandric power that all women secretly covet.
All feminists secretly covet, idiots.
But yes, we do appear to actually be in the middle of an epidemic of women crying false rape.
I hope it never happens to you, Steve.
Of course, in order to assume that men are the true victims of rape culture, one would have to believe that those various customs and social pressures I referred to earlier either don't exist or aren't that important.
Which brings me straight to number four, blindness to sexist social pressures.
I'm sure this is directly tied in with rape.
I have a hard time accepting that so many people, most of whom are fellow men, can't or won't see the sexism, misogyny, and male privileging gender inequality that still negatively affects the lives of millions of people here in my home country of the United States, let alone throughout the rest of the world.
There is literally nothing right with that sentence.
But even if you can't see it, you still don't have a very good excuse for ignoring it.
Is that because the feminist definition of taking action is to nag until someone else does it?
Because lots of women have seen it and have been talking about it very publicly for all the last 50 or 60 years.
Stop saying women when you really mean feminists.
All you have to do is listen.
Fuck sake, maybe he does mean women.
No, I'm not fucking listening to them complaining.
I have to listen to the women in my own life complain.
That's enough.
I don't need any more women complaining at me.
Not listen and rationalize, not listen and reflexively dismiss, but listen with the thought that maybe, just maybe, the person talking might know something about what the fuck she's talking about.
Whether women understand their own feelings is a topic for another day.
All I know is that it's not happening.
It cannot be proven to be happening.
So if women feel like it's happening, that is not my problem.
Belittling of survivor experiences.
Well, when the term survivor has been expanded to say people who survived getting propositioned for coffee in an elevator, then yes, I am going to belittle certain survivor experiences.
One of the most regrettable results of rape culture and of the denial of rape culture is that women who have been victims of sexual assaults are made to feel as though their experiences don't matter.
Is this anything to do with the feminists trivializing the concepts of rape and sexual assault?
Have you been switch raped recently, Steve?
Educate people about rape, encourage men to be more aware of and sensitive to the concerns and needs of women.
I don't give a fuck about the concerns and needs of women, Steve.
Don't worry, I don't give a fuck about the concerns and needs of men either.
Do you know why?
I'll tell you why, because they're fucking adults, you twat.
You make them sound like children.
Pursue rape prevention strategies that aim to change harmful customs and values.
What harmful customs and values, you imbecile.
Instead of just teaching women where to park and how to dress?
I don't know.
That sounds like a lot of work.
It's more that it's a fool's errand, you idiot.
And what about all those men who would never dream of raping someone?
It wouldn't be fair to them, now, would it?
I don't know, Steve, but what I do know is that a black person stole my neighbor's car.
So you can imagine how suspicious I am of black people.
I'm sorry, honey.
I mean, it really is a shame that you were raped, but big picture?
It's just not that important.
And nothing shows that more.
Than instead of giving women the tools to prevent themselves ever being raped, the rape itself doesn't matter.
What matters is that rapes occur.
Your individual rape, like Steve says, really doesn't matter.
What matters is that you're a statistic.
Although having some sort of self-defense may have prevented that rape, that doesn't change our figures.
That doesn't change the numbers on this spreadsheet, you see.
So, even though it is preventing the rape that's the most important thing, your rape isn't the most important thing.
Just the average rapes are the most important thing.
Even though, I mean, the average rapes probably will go down if women also learn to defend themselves and then they don't get raped as well.
But it just can't be a good thing.
No, a better way to definitely go about this is by making it so men don't try to rape women.
So women don't have to learn how to defend themselves.
And in the meantime, yeah, it does suck that you were raped.
Run along now.
No, I think I'm going to say this more clearly so that you, Steve Shives, understand what I'm actually saying.
Because I don't think you do understand this.
We do everything we can to minimize the chances of men thinking it's okay to rape.
Even the rapists know that it's bad.
That's just not something that bothers them, apparently.
So now we've done that.
We need to take the next step, and that is doing everything we can to make sure the rapes themselves don't occur, because once they do, you can't take it back.
There is no going back to the pre-rape time when that person hadn't suffered in such a way, male or female, Steve.
So teaching them self-defense, teaching anyone self-defense, is a damn good thing.
Oh, would it kill you to smile more often?
You're so much prettier when you smile.
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