{"id":29052,"date":"2014-12-08T00:01:38","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T05:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=29052"},"modified":"2014-12-06T12:16:59","modified_gmt":"2014-12-06T17:16:59","slug":"qotd-talking-about-rape-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/12\/08\/qotd-talking-about-rape-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Talking about “rape culture”"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I am having a hard time getting my head around something. All week people have been calling me a \u201crape apologist\u201d and \u201cpro-rape.\u201d I\u2019m being constantly informed that I don\u2019t understand \u201crape culture.\u201d These often hysterical accusations tend to come from people who seem to understand rape culture the same way some people understand the geopolitics of Westeros or Middle Earth: They\u2019ve studied it, they know every detail about it, they just seem to have forgotten it doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

Now, hold on. I certainly believe rape happens. And I definitely believe we have cultural problems that lead to date rape and other drunken barbarisms and sober atrocities. But the term \u201crape culture\u201d suggests that there is a large and obvious belief system that condones and enables rape as an end in itself in America. This simply strikes me as an elaborate political lie intended to strengthen the hand of activists. There\u2019s definitely lots that is wrong with our culture, particularly youth culture and specifically campus culture. Sybaritic, crapulent, hedonistic, decadent, bacchanalian: choose your adjectives.<\/p>\n

What is most remarkable about our problems is that they seem to take people by surprise. For instance, it would be commonsense to our grandmothers that some drunk men will do bad things, particularly in a moral vacuum, and that women should take that into account. I constantly hear that instead of lecturing women about their behavior we should teach men not to rape. I totally, completely, 100 percent agree that we should teach men not to rape. The problem is we do that. A lot. Maybe we should do it more. We also teach people not to murder — another heinous crime. But murders happen too. That\u2019s why we advise our kids to steer clear of certain neighborhoods at certain times and avoid certain behaviors. I\u2019m not \u201cpro-murder\u201d if I tell my kid not to walk through the park at night and flash money around any more than I am pro-rape if I give her similar advice.<\/p>\n

Of course, the problem is that feminists want to expunge any notion that women are gentler and fairer. This requires declaring war on chivalric standards for male conduct, which were once a great bulwark against caddish and rapacious behavior. Take away the notion that men should be protective of women and they will — surprise! — be less protective of women.<\/p>\n

None of this means we\u2019d all be better off with women in corsets on fainting couches. (I like strong, assertive women so much I married one. I\u2019m also the son of one, and I\u2019m trying to raise another.) But somehow feminists have gotten themselves into the position of adopting the adolescent male\u2019s fantasy of consequence-and-obligation-free sex as an ideal for women. Uncivilized and morally uneducated men have, for millennia, wanted to treat women like sluts. And now feminists have embraced the word as a badge of honor. Call me an old-fogey, but I think that\u2019s weird.<\/p>\n

Jonah Goldberg, The Goldberg File<\/em><\/a>, 2014-12-05.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I am having a hard time getting my head around something. All week people have been calling me a \u201crape apologist\u201d and \u201cpro-rape.\u201d I\u2019m being constantly informed that I don\u2019t understand \u201crape culture.\u201d These often hysterical accusations tend to come from people who seem to understand rape culture the same way some people understand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,28,41,13],"tags":[343,262,456,303,764],"class_list":["post-29052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-media","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-culture","tag-hysteria","tag-sexism","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7yA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29052"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29067,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29052\/revisions\/29067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}