So after a rather heated discussion I had today I decided to write down a little rant. This discussion showed me that many women are very confused about what men are told to do and not to do. It seemed almost as if, according to a lot of people, women were told that 'men do whatever the hell they want' and that they should be the ones to protect themselves. I was told that, actually, rapists are normal guys. So the norm for males is that everyone goes around raping and spiking drinks? And then it's confusing for this person why I, as a man, would feel insulted that she insinuates that I too could possibly be a rapist and/or could spike someones drink. I'm dumbfounded.

I will probably say 'women' a lot but I mean a specific brand of women, and some of the men. Don't take it personally - if the shoe doesn't fit then buy another shoe.

Now if I ignore my strong feelings that, yes, women should do more to protect themselves, such as learn self defense.. I am very confused as to why this person I discussed this with was under the impression that men aren't taught anything about rape. Furthermore, why they thought that men thought rape and abuse is somehow ok.

We need to teach men not to rape. Instead of telling women not to get their drink spiked before going out, why not tell men not to do this?

Are you fucking serious? You have to be fucked in the brain to spike someones drink to begin with, do you really think telling men 'don't spike women's drinks' is gonna do ANYTHING? We do tell men not to do this, in fact we hear it all the time! If you're a man and don't know that this is unacceptable behavior (by law and simply by social fucking norms) then you're fucked, your parents are fucked, and you deserve to go to jail.

Rapist: “I'm gonna have fun tonight and rape a woman!”
Person: “No, rape is bad!”
Rapist: “Shit, I didn't know that, thank you! I'll never do it again.”

BRUH. ARE YOU SERIOUS? Do you really think that will work?

A) men are told rape is bad 20x a year already
B) the media does enforce 'rape is bad' 300x a year already
C) a rapist does know rape is bad

Rapists know that rape is bad! THEY JUST DON'T CARE. A DRUG DEALER KNOWS DEALING DRUGS IS ILLEGAL. BUT THEY DON'T CARE. TELLING THEM NOT TO DO IT ISN'T GONNA CHANGE SHIT.

And then this idea that all men are potential rapists. Do you have any idea how insulting it is for a woman to tell me to my face that I am a potential rapist? So no matter what I do, how careful I am, how specifically far I stay away from women unless they tell me verbally that it's okay for me to come closer just to talk... no matter all of that I would ultimately still be a potential rapist. Guilty until proven innocent, right? And that's a battle you can't win because you can't prove you're not a rapist.

So what's next, contracts to have sex? Wait no, we have those already in the US, lol, go figure. You need to schedule an appointment with the office of sex and pleasure to schedule a sex appointment, do all the required paperwork, wait 30 working days for a government reply, and if it's accepted you have to pay 100€ for a sex-permit that's valid for the day you want to have sex.

ONLY THEN WILL YOU BE ALLOWED TO SAY 'I HAD CONSENSUAL SEX WITH THIS WOMAN'.

And then she hit me with the 'I'm scared of men because they can hurt me'. Anyone can hurt you if they carry a weapon, anyone can do anything to you. People can stalk you to your house or just contact you endlessly for no apparent reason, but physical harm is somehow the prime reason you're scared of men.

And yeah sure I can understand that. No matter what those Tumblr feminists tell you, two sexes are very real and there are certain biological traits attached to those sexes that make men stronger than women in most cases. But fuck me. Please don't, I might get called a rapist. If physical harm is the only reason you're scared of men I have news for you:

this so called 'toxic masculinity' that women hate so much is also a good reason for us to step in when we see a woman getting harassed. You know, chivalry and honor and all that. Makes it so that we feel compelled to throw our weight around if a woman is being harassed and obviously not enjoying the person that she's talking with.

It's a double edged sword, because the same men that you're scared of are probably compelled to help you if shit goes wrong. And you can't deny that that is pretty damn fucking helpful.

You want to live in a world where women are never told 'watch your drink.' 'Dress appropriately.' 'Don't talk to strangers.' Me too.

Shame that it'll never happen. Reality is cruel, get used to it.

MAN. Y'all Tumblr dwellers are really something else.

Stupid is as stupid does man.

I'd be inclined to agree.

We are told not to rape, whether you're religious, secular or whatever in one form of rules sent down in some form or another all men at some point in their lives have been told not to rape. We don't need to tell men not to do it because that's the same as arguing women shouldn't dress like they want to get raped. Neither of which really make sense, if someone's brain chemistry is all fucked up and their thing is rape thats opening another kettle of fish but that definitely doesn't mean all of us go around raping. I have no problems with admiring a woman as she walk pasts it doesn't mean I'm going to or am even thinking about raping you. Don't flatter yourself.

Feminazism is a fucking curse.

@SmileyJaws Word. I agree.

Okay you MRAs, time for a lil devil's advocate......

I agree that the idea that we as men have to be told not to rape is patronising and insulting. But I can understand the sentiment in context.

There are some men, (not me, and probably not you guys) who have been told by there fathers, brothers or friends things like. If she's absolutely blind drunk, its fine for you to fuck her as long as you are drunk too. Or If shes your girlfriend its okay to initiate sex while she's asleep. Or the worst one is, when women say no, what they really mean is yes, they are just playing games. Now even though I am intelligent enough to determine how dodgy all this is, I've definately heard other men say this to me and each other.

Now I'm going to assume that we wouldn't ever carry out behaviour like this, but there are impressionable, maybe younger men who might listen to this things and act it out, thinking it was acceptable. Teaching men not to rape, doesn't mean telling a bunch of college bros not to jump out of the bushes and snatch a girl out of the park. It clarifying to the new generation exactly where consent begins and ends and that some of these 'old bros tales' simply cannot apply anymore.

So yeah, you can all transform into @Weird Tales now and call me an ESS JAY DUBYU feminist mangina Cuck now. But If I had a son, I'd probably be teaching him the above too.

@Dynamo Frokane If you want to play devils' advocate you should take a look at rape laws across the world. There's a lot of countries where a man legally simply cannot be raped.

And even in some US states the laws are clear - you cannot get raped as a man unless someone penetrates you.

Second off, calling me/others MRA's right off the bat is kind of stupid too. Not that I'm not used to that from you by now.

It's important to realize too that the world doesn't revolve around America. Where I live, we have clearly established boundaries. Children in school (primary school, age 10-12) are taught about sex, drugs, rape etc. Just because the USA sucks at everything doesn't mean the rest of the world has to.

And actually, teaching college kids not to snatch a woman is exactly what's happening.

Here we are

I think what we are seeing is a political bandwagon effect you see from time to time, where people join a movement or agree with an idea for the sake of the bandwagon, often without understanding the belief they are joining.

So, taking the phrase "We should teach men not to rape", that is theoretically supposed to be referring to blindspots a culture might have about what rape is. Obviously there isn't a problem with people violently raping people or cosbying people just because they don't know any better. But fucking chicks passed out at parties? Or women who say no, and keep saying no, but don't raise their voice or defend themselves? Well, it's easier to see how a guy, particularly a young guy, might be confused in that department. And seeing as how the person you were arguing with thought the phrase "We should teach men not to rape." meant that guys might know what rape is but do it anyway for some reason... well, I suppose that shows some women are confused in this department as well.

I do absolutely agree with you about the way we use victim blaming in our society though. There is a difference between dismissing a victim for not defending themselves, which is what that term should be used to describe, and giving the victim the tools to protect themselves from the crime, which is something we should promote instead of denigrate. I mean, shit, I agree with a lot of what the mainstream Black Lives Matter movement is about, but you aren't going to catch me strolling around East Saint Louis at night alone. Just because you think there is a problem doesn't mean you should act like the problem doesn't exist.

@Vilageidiotx Again, I'm not American, the whole 'raping a girl who is unconscious at a party' has never happened here in my lifetime. I've not seen it in the news once.

Rapes here happen at night, in quiet places, or happen by a relative/friend of the family. There's just a totally different culture here - which to a feminist doesn't matter because the world is all based off of the USA anyway - and sad to say but rape is a non-issue here in the sense that it occurs so little and in such controlled areas that it's hard to blame men for it.

But yeah obviously fucking chicks that are passed out at a party, and obviously a woman saying no and continuing to have sex with her, those are bad. But like I said, you have to be pretty fucking stupid not to realize that you should at least stop and ask her 'do you really mean no?'

And honestly if you have sex with a passed out girl then what the fuck you deserve to get jailed.

Recent case being Brock Turner. Guy should be in jail for life.

Either way, I still disagree with what you're saying. But that's because I'm Dutch, not American, so I know that we teach children from a very very young age not to do things like that.

In the USA you lot just need a better sexual education system from 10-12 years old, not at college campuses. It's just demeaning and insulting at that point.

@Vilageidiotx Again, I'm not American, the whole 'raping a girl who is unconscious at a party' has never happened here in my lifetime. I've not seen it in the news once.

Rapes here happen at night, in quiet places, or happen by a relative/friend of the family. There's just a totally different culture here - which to a feminist doesn't matter because the world is all based off of the USA anyway - and sad to say but rape is a non-issue here in the sense that it occurs so little and in such controlled areas that it's hard to blame men for it.

I think at this point I'll have to mention before any advancement of the argument is given on what both countries consider rape to be under their native legal code. To start, the US Department of Justice defines rape as: "Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim."

And I believe from some other thread I heard or read you were from the Netherlands; correct me if I'm wrong. But for comparison's sake Dutch law defines rape as: "A person who by an act of violence or another act or by threat of violence or threat of another act compels a person to submit to acts comprising or including sexual penetration of the body is guilty of rape and liable to a term of imprisonment of not more than twelve years or a fine of the fifth category."

By comparison of these two laws we see to different situations which define what a rape is in either country and explains why here in the US we can consider drugging an individual so they may be more complacent or unresponsive as an act of rape. Where is in the wording of Dutch law's "A person who by an act of violence or another act or by threat of violence or threat of another act" presents a definition more focused on the act of force or the threat of force direct or indirect. It doesn't explicitly include or discuss coercion as much as US law.

US law was also before 2012 a bit more complicated in American style by allowing each state or jurisdiction of the country make its own slightly different definition of rape. The FBI originally changed the definition from "The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will" to the current definition, which I will say again seems to suggest all forms of coercion and not just violence or the threat of violence.

This may serve to explain the difference in how rape may be reported or talked about between our two countries. If a chick gets drugged at a Dutch party and isn't capable of giving consent and gets boned it may not be reported in the same way as it would be in the US and it may be entered into a whole different system. But I'm not a Dutch legal expert any more than I am a US legal expert.

There are other factors too about rape statistics since no one really records incidents retroactively so male-male rape was never really reported in the US since it was never really legally relevant until the definition change. Marital rape likewise was never part of Dutch law until - as I have read - 2011.

But now in the sake of broader comparisons, let's pull samples from other European law books.

Auf Deutschland:

"Whoever compels a woman to have extramarital intercourse with him, or with a third person, by force or the threat of present danger to life or limb, shall be punished by not less than two years’ imprisonment."

This was the law around 1997. It's since been amended a couple times and has come now to include the illegalization of marital rape, sex with a woman when she says "No", and groping as sexual assault.

Finnish defintion(s):

"(1) A person who forces another into sexual intercourse by the use or threat of violence shall be sentenced for rape to imprisonment for at least one year and at most six years. (2) Also a person who, by taking advantage of the fact that another person, due to unconsciousness, illness, disability, state of fear or other state of helplessness, is unable to defend himself or herself or to formulate or express his or her will, has sexual intercourse with him or her, shall be sentenced for rape"

Chapter 20 - Sex offences Section 1 - Rape, if you need that at all.

France:
"Any act of sexual penetration, whatever its nature, committed against another person by violence, constraint, threat or surprise, is rape"

And for the UK, I'll just puke this here since British law for Rape seems to be even wackier in terms of how non-standardized it is.

@Dynamo Frokane If you want to play devils' advocate you should take a look at rape laws across the world. There's a lot of countries where a man legally simply cannot be raped.

Thats nice, not sure what that has to do with my argument about consent....

Second off, calling me/others MRA's right off the bat is kind of stupid too. Not that I'm not used to that from you by now.

Oh so you aren't an MRA? You don't advocate for men's rights? Because I do. I must've been mistaken about you.

It's important to realize too that the world doesn't revolve around America. Where I live, we have clearly established boundaries. Children in school (primary school, age 10-12) are taught about sex, drugs, rape etc. Just because the USA sucks at everything doesn't mean the rest of the world has to.

1. I'm not american, I'm not sure what USA has to do with my post.

2. I learned about sex education in school when I was about 10 too, so this isn't an argument, moving on....

And actually, teaching college kids not to snatch a woman is exactly what's happening.

Here we are

So I see a google search with a few articles talking about consent classes. I think we both agree that consent is important. I can say that if any school is saying "Dont snatch a woman from the bushes" then they are stupid. If you could provide me a source of a direct quote where any school, american or otherwise has said that, then I will call them stupid too. If not there isn't really an arguement.

@Dinh AaronMk Your quote on the Dutch law is correct but interpreted wrongly.

Volgens de wet is verkrachting iemand dwingen tot het ondergaan van handelingen die (mede) bestaan uit het seksueel binnendringen van het lichaam door middel van (bedreiging met) geweld of door middel van (bedreiging met) een andere feitelijkheid. Kortom: er moet sprake zijn van dwang, door (bedreiging met) geweld of een andere feitelijkheid. Die dwang moet tot seksuele handelingen leiden waarbij het lichaam wordt binnengedrongen. Is dat het geval, dan is een veroordeling voor verkrachting mogelijk.

'.. through (threat of) violence and/or through (threat of) another factuality..'

This other factuality can be anything. It can be drugs, it can be alcohol, it can be a large number of things depending on what the judge makes of it. There has to be 'force' not in the sense of violence but 'force' in the sense of incapacity to decline.

So yes, actually, it does get reported. But the English translation doesn't translate as well. Mostly because you removed the brackets. So in fact the laws in the US and NL are, pretty much, equal.

Marital rape was included in 1991 actually and it was only in 1991 that we also made it legally possible for a man to get raped.

Groping isn't considered rape here but rather 'sexual assault' or 'aanranding' as we call it. It's a different class and basically relates to sexual acts that do not include penetration.

In any case, since the laws are pretty much equal, I wonder what's wrong in the US so much that we have 2 entirely different situations. Probably not relating to the legal system then, but rather, the education of children when it comes to what is acceptable and what isn't.

I've also learned that many American schools don't offer sexual education.

Maybe that's a start.

@Dinh AaronMk Your quote on the Dutch law is correct but interpreted wrongly.

Well I got it from the Wiki page because I ain't spending five hours of an already ending evening/morning. So I'll concede to that. Whoever put it up there goofed.

<Snipped quote>

I've also learned that many American schools don't offer sexual education.

Maybe that's a start.

Well I can't speak for this because my schools did sex education. A couple times actually, once in middle-school and again in high-school, and I assume again if I went into some sort of relevant medicine or law degree in college/university; but I'm not going in that direction so I won't be sitting through that.

If I were to place my bets though, I would hypothesize it's the Deep South. If any party is up to doing some work it'd be interesting to find and examine these environments and to correlate them to rape statistics to see if there's any trends in that case. But I don't have that sort of time or energy.

@Dinh AaronMk I'm gonna go on a limb and say that most rapes in the US happen in either the rural south, or the high-population cities like NY, NJ, LA, etc.

@Dinh AaronMk

uh, looks like you might want to check your butt, because Michigan isn't doing well.

@Dinh AaronMk I'm gonna go on a limb and say that most rapes in the US happen in either the rural south, or the high-population cities like NY, NJ, LA, etc.

Counting high-population centers and listing them as just simply how much rapes happen there will be a given since there's so many more people compared to the rural south. You would really need to do this by per-capita but even then it may be hard to discern if education or the lack there-of is really the problem since cities will naturally have higher per-capita for everything due to the richness of targets in high-population environments.

But, whatever.

In semi-related open thinking, I'm going to point out that the legal existence of rape in Japan is relatively new compared to the rest of the world. But in the rape stats page I was using on Wikipedia Japan is omitted and is only evoked twice as a comparison to Australia (1.2 per 100,000 reported cases in Japan versus Australia's 28.6 per 100,000) and in a large table of general rape stats. My only source on the "recent" introduction of rape law in Japan and the concept of its "culture" comes from all places a novel: Death by Water by Kenziboru Oe.

As a general over-view one of the major plots after the advertised plot basically takes a shit and dies some five chapters in is one of the character's experiences with having been raped when she was seventeen and being forced to get an abortion because of it.

That in hand in mind I can be very, very cheeky and suggest the anime-watching, manga-reading alt-right MRA crowd adopts their attitudes of rape ("Rapu", as it's creatively called in Japan) directly from a culture that has a bit of catching up to come to grips with what the fuck a modern western rape is. But that's something I should keep on hand if I feel like shitposting on /pol/ or something.

@Dinh AaronMk

uh, looks like you might want to check your butt, because Michigan isn't doing well.

THANKS RICK SNYDER.

That fucking South Dakota tho.

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

THANKS RICK SNYDER.

That fucking South Dakota tho.

It's sort of bizarre. Aside from there being a relationship between rape and proximity to Texas, there isn't much of a correlation here to explain the states that stick out.

<Snipped quote by Buddha>

Thats nice, not sure what that has to do with my argument about consent....

Nothing, it has to do with you proclaiming 'playing devils advocate' as you can clearly read.

Oh so you aren't an MRA? You don't advocate for men's rights? Because I do. I must've been mistaken about you.

No, I'm not an MRA, in the same way I'm not a feminist. I advocate rights for both sides to equalize the law rather than focus on either of the two groups exclusively.

Men are severely debilitated in many areas of legality such as divorce laws, childrens visitation rights, alimony, abortion, as well as being severely over-represented in many negative statistics such as combat deaths, work accidents, suicide statistics.

There's also a worrying trend of men not receiving the care they need when they struggle with mental illness, men not being taken seriously when they are reporting rape/sexual abuse, or abuse within marital situations.

But no, I'd rather not associate myself with MRA's, even if my ideas sound like theirs sometimes. I like to think it's possible to work on both the issues of females and males without having to go through the trouble of adding a label to myself. It's easier to present myself without having to worry about the thoughts of some MRA group/feminism group and what they think about what I want to say. I say what I want to say, and if that happens to align with what an MRA group thinks then great, otherwise, I don't care.

Also, most MRA's are really cringy. 'MGTOW' groups are kinda aids too.

1. I'm not american, I'm not sure what USA has to do with my post.

2. I learned about sex education in school when I was about 10 too, so this isn't an argument, moving on....

1. It has to do with your post that when we talk about rape, we have an American-centric view. Most cases that we can talk about happen in the US, other 'rape stories' don't make it big internationally and so it shapes our perception of rape even if this isn't necessarily the case elsewhere.

2. Good, and as you can see, you're a healthy individual who knows not to rape women.

;)

Maybe there's a link.

So I see a google search with a few articles talking about consent classes. I think we both agree that consent is important. I can say that if any school is saying "Dont snatch a woman from the bushes" then they are stupid. If you could provide me a source of a direct quote where any school, american or otherwise has said that, then I will call them stupid too. If not there isn't really an arguement.

If you genuinely think consent classes are about consent then .. well, it's pretty clear they're just meant for some teacher to wag their finger at males and go 'damn rapists'. That has been my experience anyway. Maybe if the consent class was held by some rational person, but as we know people who study gender studies aren't really rational people most of the time.

Introducing mandatory lessons on the correct way for students to have sex, whatever their gender, is also a gross overstepping of individual boundaries on the part of the university authorities. The people arriving in halls may be young, many of them fresh out of school, but they are nonetheless autonomous adults, responsible for their own choices in life and answerable for the consequences of their actions.

I am in college to learn a trade and obtain information, not for school to mandatorily tell me how to have sex, how to get consent and how to forge a relationship with someone. As I've said before; I am not against consent classes, I am against the fact that they are mandatory and that they brand all men as potential rapists and all women as potential victims.

Honestly, I'm quite sure that a college telling students how to have sex is not even within their educational scope. Focus on teaching kids what they need to learn. Sexual education is for highschool or primary school.

The prevalence of sexual assaults on campus – and elsewhere – will not be remedied by this neo-puritan preaching to students. As well as being inappropriate, it is simply too late by then. The time for teaching and exploring the nature of consent is when people really are children. The absence of thorough, open and honest sex education in schools may be one of the real reasons that Irish universities are struggling to deal with an excess of lairy behaviour now.

Moving on from that; even if you are correct, even if consent classes were classes about consent - there's zero evidence they work. There's not been a single rape prevented by these classes, I am sure of that. But we can't prove a negative so it's rather hard for me to back up that claim.

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>

It's sort of bizarre. Aside from there being a relationship between rape and proximity to Texas, there isn't much of a correlation here to explain the states that stick out.

Texas is pretty normal compared to its northern neighbors as well. But if this is for reported rape could there be a difference in terms of how rape is thought of between these states?

Alaska - being the northern Florida - is probably about on par with cold-weather expectations. I bet its the Anchorage area that's carrying that state.