Some writers fall in love with words. The more I write, the more I know how little individual words mean. The more I interact with people very different from me, the more I ignore exact words and tell others to do the same. They're just not that helpful. "Divided by a common language" and all that.
There were two words placed in close context in one of these posts, "soldier" and "rapist." The first of these words invoked your pride in a way that probably no other word can. Rightfully so. About the only benefit you're given in return for the privation and danger of serving your country as a solider is pride. That's wrong, in that you deserve more in return for what you give, but that's another post.
It's also wrong in terms of what pride does, because that second word ran smack into that pride. Honestly, I can't even begin to imagine how much that must have hurt. That's a strong word and pride is very vulnerable. I hurt in sympathy, but I know it doesn't approach what you must have felt to hit that. I'm pretty sure I can't understand that.
However, and I ask you to bear with me as I explain, rather than starting to argue immediately, this does not mean that Greg owes you an apology for calling you a rapist. For two reasons.
The first is that he didn't call you a rapist. At least not in the post or the comments on his blog. I will get to the other part later.
- He elucidated someone else's theory and asked for responses and challenges to it. Those words were fully embedded in that person's theory.
- He asked for a different word. No, he didn't endorse Rystefn's alternative. He didn't argue with it either. Given the specificity he was looking for regarding a physical response and the confusion in the comments over whether "potential" is even meaningful, I get being hesitant.
- He actually used quite a large number of words to explain what the theory was saying about behavior. In order to claim he called you a rapist in any way that is more meaningful than calling you a motherfucker, you need to ignore a lot of context, context that specifically states you didn't rape anyone, even if the theory is correct in all its details.
The second reason is that "you owe me an apology" is a direct functional equivalent to "dance, monkey, dance." Apologies are rituals. They're socially useful, but they're empty on their own. It would probably make you feel better for Greg to apologize for calling you a rapist, but given that he doesn't believe he did, it wouldn't mean anything. He'd be dancing.
If you want an apology, ask for one that doesn't involve him saying something he doesn't believe. Do you really think he's any happier about the fact that you're hurting than I am? (Actually, Rystefn, there's a pretty fair chance that by the time we got to my blog thread, Greg was hurting you for hurting me. You can ask him.)
In the meantime, you're walking around in a discussion about rape wrapped in a sense of entitlement. Somebody owes you something. It comes across in your focus, where you're pushing people to discuss the details of marginalized sexuality, about which you know quite a bit, rather than the general topic of preventing rape. It comes across in your language, where you're telling women they "have to" do something, generally agree with you. Sometimes apologize to you.
You're telling these people to dance, too. Some of them are rape survivors. All of them are aware of their potential for victimization, particularly aware at the moment. I'm pretty sure you would generally be much more sensitive to both of these behaviors in this context, so I'm blaming the entitlement.
In most contexts, the shift in behavior that entitlement creates would make me unhappy, because my friends aren't communicating. In this context, I find it creepy as hell. You're giving me a very clear picture of how entitlement can lead to me, both personally and as a female in general, being utterly discounted, even by someone I consider a very close friend.
Guys, I understand and hate that you're hurting, but you're scaring me.
26 comments:
"It just says that Greg did not call you a rapist.
The second reason is that "you owe me an apology" is a direct functional equivalent to "dance, monkey, dance." Apologies are rituals. They're socially useful, but they're empty on their own. It would probably make you feel better for Greg to apologize for calling you a rapist, but given that he doesn't believe he did, it wouldn't mean anything. He'd be dancing."
Stephanie Zvan, Saturday, June 06, 2009
"You are a rapist. You happen to not rape innocent bystanders because you stop yourself from doing it, maybe you even stop yourself from thinking about it. But rape is something you are capable of, and that you do occassionally, under artificially highly controlled circumstances."
gregladen 6/04/2009 9:39 PM
I believe you're misreading me. I don't blame you for it. It's easy to do when emotions get hot, which in this case, they most certainly have in more than one person.
I never told anyone they had to apologize, at least I didn't intend to. I may have overstated my position. Emotions being heated and getting in the way of accurate communications, and all that. I stated strongly that I felt I deserved one, and I still do. But I wouldn't want it if it was hollow ritual or in any other way insincere. I'd rather have honest hatred (not that I'm accusing anyone of that specifically here, just stating my stance).
Now, please to understand here - I know very well precisely what Greg meant by the word "rapist." In fact, my very first comment on the subject was to point out that I disagreed with his definition, not that I took personal offense at the usage.
When he asked for responses and challenges, I gave exactly that. I'm not alone in anything I said in that post, so I'm not completely alone in seeing these flaws. The specific flaw we're talking about here... well, let's just say that the specific word you choose to use can carry a lot of weight behind it.
As a writer, when you see a word is carrying a vastly different meaning than what you want to convey, and alienating your audience, you need to be ready to drop it. And not just ask for alternatives, then never use them, either.
As far as entitlement goes, well I'll give you the benefit of the doubt there, and pin that on you just being unfamiliar with how I am. I'm easily drawn into tangents. When someone makes a comment, and I see a problem with it, I point out the problem, even if it's not directly related to the immediate topic. I don't see this as a flaw. I see as following a more organic flow to conversation than a structured one.
Add that to my propensity for hyperbole and doing everything full-tilt, and I can see how it would seem that I'm pushing people to discuss something when that's not remotely my intention... For example, when I brought up BDSM, it was merely to point out a flaw in Greg's logic that anyone who was into that sort of thing or thought it was normal needed professional help. I may have introduced the tangent there, but others ran with it. In fact, I said nothing more on the subject of BDSM until someone else chimed in with certain misconceptions of it directed specifically at me, at which point, I think it's perfectly understandable that I would attempt to correct him, don't you?
As far as telling people what they "have to" do... I'm pretty sure I haven't done that, either. It's not my style. I've thrown around a few "can't"s, and as I've said before, it wasn't a direction so much as an observation that the tactic wouldn't work.
If you're feeling discounted, believe me, that's not my intent. Yes, I tend to focus on flaws and weaknesses. That's where my particular strength lies, and I prefer to play to my strengths in most situations. I'm aware it makes me look like a negative person a lot of the time, and I'm aware it makes me few friends in this kind of situation. Still, it's basically my self-appointed lot in life to jump up and down on bridges and see if they collapse.
See, when I try to gently point out the flaws, such as I did with your statement about certainty, I tend to be met with a less than positive response anyway, so I'm sure you can understand why I don't bother very often.
So, this turned out to be quite long, and probably sounds more defensive than self-explanatory as I intended, so I'm just going to end it here. I hope I managed to make at least part of what I'm trying to say clear.
While we're talking about dancing, as in the tangent thread opened at DuWayne's, I apologize for repeatedly misusing the overarching term "BDSM" to refer to what small subset of the group he refers to as the "ultra-violents". The term applies to far more groups than my understanding of it, and as such when I was trying to tie together my understanding of violent rape with my understanding of people who get off on violent sex, I was ignoring that there's a whole spectrum of activities that are perfectly acceptable when the partner consents that a person may not be able to do without that explicit consent obtained ahead of time.
The fact that consent is the key factor for whether someone's willing to rape violently or otherwise, should not have led me to believe that it would be easier for a violently sexual person to become a violent rapist than for a non-violent person to become a non-violent rapist. There's nothing about the one axis that should affect the other.
As for the repeated use of "you're a rapist" by everyone making this argument, well, of course that's going to chafe on everyone's nerves.
This whole argument, every single tangent, and every side of the debate, is about semantics, when you get right down to it. While Greg wanted people to explore the theory itself, everyone has gotten hung up on the meanings of the words that they feel he misused in describing it.
It also doesn't help the civility of this whole episode that Greg doesn't think he did anything wrong. From what I've read of him, he seems like the type that's more than willing to stir a hornet's nest or two, and it appears that's exactly what he keeps doing every time someone confronts him on the semantic side of the argument -- he'll take a jab at them and redouble the insult before he'll actually apologize. It'd be charming if it weren't so maddening where emotions are already running hot.
Lou, that would be the comment that I set aside as coming late in the mess and needing Greg's attention, not because I think in any way that it doesn't count, but because I can't speak to it myself.
Rystefn, I hear you. We've all got our quirks. One of mine is that I will pull the house down if necessary in order to make something heard when it needs to be. It's a strength and a flaw.
Jason, please don't take this the wrong way, but sometimes the middle is exactly the wrong place to be. This, for you, is probably one of those times.
Hasn't been the first time, and definitely won't be the last time, that I throw myself into the chummed waters.
Most things are both a strength and a flaw depending on the context. Just a fact of life.
For the record, I stand by what I said earlier. Whatever you need to do or to think to make yourself safe (short of preemptively attacking strangers or that sort of thing, of course), you do it. I'll never begrudge that... but there are consequences to saying what is you do. Sometimes those consequences are good, and help other people stay safe. Sometimes, they're bad. Sometimes it's not so clear-cut.
I admit I phrased in an angry mindset, but I stand behind the basic sentiment - be careful and think about the things you say and do. Most unforeseen consequences could have been foreseen if we thought about it a little bit more.
I also admit that I can be as guilty of it as anyone else. I can point out some examples if you doubt me on that one. Hell just in this conversation we've been having, I certainly never thought I'd creep someone out, much less scare anyone. That was not my intent at any point, and I apologize for it.
I guess the point is, I apologize for the way I said some of the things I said, but I stand by the ideas behind them.
Through a combination of willfully staying away from a computer that hooks to the Internet (I've got this great invention: A computer that only processes text and does not hook to the Internet. A writer's dream machine.) and the fact that at the moment the Internet connection at the cabin is very tenuous, I've not been watching this discussion. I just left a comment on my own site a few moments ago that very briefly addresses some of this.
(ACK... my comment was too long..... continuing..)
As a meta comment, let me say first that this is an example of how the Internet fails us. Have you (yes, you, the one reading this) ever said something ... two or three things mushed together in a spoken paragraph ... and someone stops you and says "Oh, that's interesting, bla bla bla" and suddenly you are talking about a sub-set of the issues you mentioned that you had originally intended to work past? Or, have you ever had a big huge complex thought about something linked to a phrase you uttered, but did not elaborate, and maybe you kind of even hoped that no one would pick up on it because you just want to think about it for a moment (or a year or two) and this was not necessarily a good time to think of it? Or did you ever experience the tail end of a conversation that was just starting to touch on complex and interesting details, but you were on your way out the door to go fishing, so those details just had to wait? And you figure that everyone else who was part of the conversation would continue on the topic? But you don't really care because ... you just underwent one of the most significant transformation in your life ever and all the is other stuff seems kinda minor and ... well, you're going fishing!?!!?
... continued ...
This discussion of BSDM and its relationship to rape promises to be a learning experience for me. I am in uncharted territory. I've not seen this link in the literature although I'm sure it must be out there somewhere...
A central concept in the "rape switch" idea is that the potential to rape is turned off in a particular man but can be turned on. One way to conceptualise that it is off is to compare this to the potential to kill. I've covered this earlier, but briefly: Can you imagine murder? Can you talk about, think about, a specific potential murder where you actually kill someone and not be totally freaked out and turned off by the idea? Anybody can groove to killing Hitler, right? That sort of thing. Now try it with violent wartime rape. Is that similar, can you imagine and work out the details, can you fantasise doing it, can you see yourself doing it?
Probably not. With that conceptual ability, how would a person actually end up carrying out a violent rape in this context. Perhaps they can only do that when the switch is turned on (implying that there is a switch).
That is the individual side of the argument . The other side, more generalized, has to do with the dramatic changes in rate of violent rape under certain (but not all) wartime conditions.
By now you surely know the argument.
The idea of a person normally, on a day to day basis, engaging in an accepted erotic/sexual practice that happens to simulate rape closes the gap between the psychology and physiology of the sexual act and the context of violence. Thus, BDSM is interesting.
There are three conditions under which I would suggest that a BSDM practitioner who engages in simulated rape is a rapist:
1) The person has pissed me off, annoyed me, is playing games with me, so I slap him. This is a person who wants to be dominant, but who has run into an even more dominant personality, Greg the Blogger. The only difference between me and the toughest dominator/trix is that I don't have a codeword. Do you like this? No? I thought so. Good. (... this is getting fun ...)
2) But seriously ... Suddenly, the word "rape" describes a functional act that is identical in two or more contexts but has utterly different meanings. This strongly impinges on the concept both Stephanie and I have hinted at several times in this discussion, and that DuWayne has talked about quite a bit, but that has not been developed regarding felonious behaviour and goodness/badness of a person, stigma, etc. I look forward to a post on this by Stephanie. All my former roomates who were felons (including one murderer) ... you know what I'm talking about.... So, in this case, I described a rape. Rystefn said "I did that yesterday (plus/minus a detail or two)." So, he's a rapist. Or at least, when it comes to being called a rapist after you describe yourself as such, he was asking for it ... :)
3) Maybe it is true, that just as a cop who is trained to kill and who is always telling himself (under certain conditions) to NOT pull out the gun (because it is against procedure) or who makes himself NOT return fire (because he does not know what is behind the perp who is shooting at him), a person who's primary sexual pleasure can be described accurately in such a way that it is not distinguished from rape also needs to repress carrying out that act on random people. It may be that this repression is to automatic and built in that one does not even notice it. I tried to explain this as my own repression of consensual sexual activity with whomever I happen to be hanging around with who might be expressing his or her own repression of said activity. Aren't we humans kinda walking around doing that all the time with matters of sex, food, whatever? Even fishing?
Speaking of fishing .... I gotta go.
Well, this promises to be a long response... probably more than one.
It's probably relatively uncommon, but in my particular circle, we do often take up small points from the middle of a statement and run with them. Probably why I'm more pone than most to do it in a format like this, where it's much easier to do so without completely derailing the conversation (even if it often does). As far the rest of that particular comment, well I think pretty much all of it common in normal conversation.
I've been searching for some sort of documentation about BDSM and rape, and coming up with nothing except the religious-right conflating the two (and throwing in child-molestation, abortion, drug use, and Satan worship as well) and people diligently explaining the old unofficial motto "safe, sane, and consensual." More narrow searches have come up with nothing at all. If you have any better luck, I'd be interested to see it.
As far as the idea of the "rape switch," I've said before, I think your basic idea in interesting and there is very probably something very like this going on. I simple think the metaphor of the switch is strained and the usage of the term will lead people to assume something completely different than what you're actually saying. The more I write, the more I learn how careful you have to be with words, because you can easily lead the reader to assume something completely different than what you intended to convey.
Which leas more or less organically into to your redefinition of the word "rape." Don't do it. ll you're doing by insisting on the use of this word is pissing people off and getting your core ideas lost in the noise. Think about the reaction (among your core audience here, even) to people who redefined the word in a slang context. There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over this. Would you stand up and defend the usage of "rape" to mean "soundly defeated"? Contrary to what I suspect will your initial response to this, it's not really more distant from the common usage of the word than your definition - and it is most certainly a more accepted usage currently.
Oh, and your numbered list...
1) I don't know what you think you mean by "more dominant." The phrase has been the source of a great deal of strife between BDSM types over the years, mostly because no two people can agree on what the Hell it means. I'm tempted to think you mean to say "a more stubborn jackass," and if so, you're quite wrong. Also, as I said before, I have no special word with meaning other than you'd find in the dictionary... unlike you.
2) You described what you thought was a rape. You were wrong. I did that with consent. What is the line between rape and not rape? Consent. The day you can point out that I've described myself as a rapist at any point in my life, past present or future, I'll give you a thousand-dollar bill wrapped around a gold brick from Ft. Knox.
3) A person's whose primary sexual pleasure can be described accurately in a way that is not distinguishable from rape is most likely the victim of a cherry-picking douche. I have no more need to constantly repress the urge to rape people than anyone else does (except perhaps the occasional completely asexual type). My not grabbing and raping women in dark alleys is no way analogous to a cop not returning fire at a gunman in a crowd. Hell, it's not even analogous to a cop not shooting people during traffic stops. It's more analogous to an Olympic biathlete not lurking in alleys with skis and a shotgun, waiting to murder someone and flee cross-country from the cops.
Calling violently BDSM types rapists is more or less exactly the same as calling skeet shooters murderers.
Which leas more or less organically into to your redefinition of the word "rape." Don't do it. ll you're doing by insisting on the use of this word is pissing people off and getting your core ideas lost in the noise.
You and Lou are really starting to annoy me with this. At the very beginning of hearing objections to the idea I backed off and said "OK, whatever, come up with different terminology to describe a man with a rape switch that has been turned on by context but who has not carried out the rape"
What does it take to get this through to you?
The more I write, the more I learn how careful you have to be with words, because you can easily lead the reader to assume something completely different than what you intended to convey.
Yes, indeed! And, you have to listen to what other people are trying to say ... everyone is trying to get across some kind of meaning, and over time (I would hope) what we are trying to get across likely changes as we rethink and develop our thoughts. It is incumbent on each of us to listen to what the other person is saying. For instance, in your current comment you are saying some new stuff you were not saying before.
You described what you thought was a rape. You were wrong. I did that with consent.
Yes, which is why it is interesting. But it won't be interesting if you stick in the semantic realm.
I have no more need to constantly repress the urge to rape people than anyone else does
How do you know that? HJw does anybody know that? Do you have a PhD in Pop Psychology or something?
Calling violently BDSM types rapists is more or less exactly the same as calling skeet shooters murderers.
I like that analogy. Now we are on to something.
"What does it take to get this through to you?"
Maybe if you went a full 24 hours consecutively without calling someone a rapist based on anything other than the actual act of rape... It would be a start, anyway. Actually using one of the other phrases put forward would surely help. Honestly, though, I would suggest a statement of the sort: "Well, I really stirred up a shitstorm there. It was a poor choice of words. I take it back, and from now on will say [whatever] instead."
"Yes, which is why it is interesting. But it won't be interesting if you stick in the semantic realm."
All discussion begins with semantics. Luckily a lot of it has been taken care of beforehand, and the more familiar you are with the people you're talking to, the more of it has already been dealt with in the past. That said, you cannot have any kind of discussion until everyone agrees on the words being used and what they mean.
"How do you know that? HJw[sic] does anybody know that?"
How does anyone know anything about anyone else? We guess as best we can based on our own experiences. Until we get a way measure restraint and a unit to describe it, we're all pretty much on our own. Any of my experiences I bother to point out at this point are anecdotal and unverifiable in this medium, so they basically carry no weight with anyone but myself, so I won't bother. I'll just say that it's very, very easy to repress an urge I don't feel, and I can't imagine the urge to rape averaged across the population is significantly less than zero. Feel free to disbelieve me if you like. It's not like I can show you a restraint level .002klabloozers/kilowhammy to back it up, now, can I?
Friends, Romans, Countrymen,lend me your ears . . . no, don't listen to me; cut off your ears so I can borrow them. What do you mean what for?
Ok, had to get that out . . . To me, this whole debate swirls around a central concept - we humans seems to be constantly looking for the "message" hidden in a a paragraph, as opposed to dealing with the plain langugae of the written word. We can't just look at a series of words, assembled in a sentance, and accept them as the real idea conveyed by the writer or speaker. And We're the more screwed up for it.
To be fair, I'm a verbal literalist. I'm not wired to find deep hidden meanings int things. Miss them every time. Dirve my wife nuts actually. But it also means that if I tell you "the sky is blue" you can bet that I really mean the sky is some shade of the color blue, because my internal workings are such that it never crosses my mind that I could use other words to say the same thing.
So I spend a lot of time looking for the right words to really say what I think. I read other authors intently to discern how they construct words into sentences and to see if the meaning they get from them is the meaning they really intended. And thansk to subtext, it's generally not.
So, in the present debate, I think there are universal concepts that underpin "rapist" and "apology." I also think we've spent a great deal of time on those subjects because we're looking for too much hidden meaning, instead of focusing on what was actually written.
Or, more importantly, what has actually happened. Please do not forget the original purpose of this whole discussion.
For somebody who does not want to be called "rapist", he sure spends a lot of effort to be seen and called as such.
Greg not Laden
No, other Greg, whatever Rystefn may be trying to do, I'd have to say that's not it.
He provoked Greg Laden to call him "a rapist". Now, he is demanding Greg declare he is not. It is a common strategem. rystefn is not so naive about what he does as he pretends to us ... and to himself.
Not withstanding Greg Laden's evident authority (DOMishness), the absolution rystefn seeks is not Greg's, but his own.
other Greg
Ummm... I'm not sure what you think "absolution" means, but either you're misusing it, or you're flagrantly misrepresenting me here.
Oh, and I never baited him into calling me a rapist, he did that before I said anything on the subject at all.
absolution
(1) a release from the guilt or penalty of sins, pronounced by a priest in the name of God, upon a person's confession and sincere repentance for the sins.
(2) the act of freeing or the state of being freed from guilt, blame, obligation, or promise.
You, of course, are not seeking God's absolution, but Greg's.
He cannot give you what you need.
other Greg
rystefn, from the time you first objected to Greg Laden's use of "rapists" (pl) as his vaguely defined hypothetical descriptive for men (pl) who have experienced some vaguely defined stressful experiences (war etc), you have made these threads to be about a rapist (s), yourself.
You have ignored attempts to solicit a more acceptable word and return to the hypothetical discussion. You don't want to discuss a hypothetical plural. You want to discuss a real singular.
The climax came in comments to Stephanie's blog, "When Is a Rapist?".
Greg Laden describes rape and murder :
"The difference between a person who can do that and who can not do that ... a person who can sustain an erection and achieve an orgasm while killing the woman (or man) he is fucking vs. not ... is not a small difference. It is a big difference. It is the difference between a person who is a rapist and a person who is not a rapist."
6/04/2009 9:07 PM
You described play-acting which looked a lot like rape, but wasn't rape, and definitely not murder :
"It is not so very long ago that I forcibly grabbed a woman, pulled he to the ground ripped he clothes off (sorry, no knife), penetrated her, and had an orgasm. I didn't kill her afterwards, but I did choke her for a while."
6/04/2009 9:27 PM
You challenged Greg to call you "rapist". Greg read a bit more than you wrote and accepted your challenge. He also outlined what he thought he perceived and you did never repudiate it :
"You seem to be saying that you are a person aroused by the violent act of rape, and capable of doing it, and that you do in fact do it. You have not explicitly said that you only carry out such acts with a totally willing partner, but I suppose we are o assume that this is the case.
"You are a rapist."
6/04/2009 9:39 PM
I am a little surprised ... not greatly surprised, just a little ... that Greg has run baying after your red-herrings and allowed you to hijack his attention.
other Greg
Stephanie, thank you for your hospitality, You have a nice place here. I hope I have an opportunity to look in again. doubtless following links from Greg Laden.
I had no intention of posting. But when I saw those those two wannabe alphas butting heads... a true alpha would be negligent not to separate them before they hurt themselves. ;-)
other Greg
Wait... what guilt, blame, obligation, or promise do you think I need from Greg? I guess flagrant misrepresentation it is... The rest of your babbling will only serve to verify this.
"rystefn, from the time you first objected to Greg Laden's use of "rapists" (pl) as his vaguely defined hypothetical descriptive for men (pl) who have experienced some vaguely defined stressful experiences (war etc), you have made these threads to be about a rapist (s), yourself."
Ummm... no. You can make a case that from that moment I made it about semantics, and you'd have a leg to stand on. You could even make a case that I made it about a group of people who are "rapists" by Greg's new and wrong definition. You'd be on much shakier ground, but it's not indefensible. You might then point out that the group in question includes myself, and you'd be right. It does. However, if you can't tell the difference between singluar and plural, well, I'm afraid there's no hope for you, probably.
"You have ignored attempts to solicit a more acceptable word"
This is a lie. I have posited an alternatives on at least three occasions.
You don't want to discuss a hypothetical plural. You want to discuss a real singular.
There's that counting problem again...
Then you cherry pick yourself a partial quote with a couple of breaks in the middle, in place of the actual commennt I was responding to, which was pretty much a direct parallel. Look to the paragraph before the one you quoted. At this point, I'm pretty much reduced to two thoughts here: Either you're just skimming and aren't really following the conversation very well as a result, or you're intentionally trying to mislead people. Honestly, I can't tell.
You challenged Greg to call you "rapist".
Another lie. I did nothing of the sort, and I defy you try to back up that claim... here, I begin to lean strongly towards intentional deception. If you'd like to try again without the glaring errors and outright lies, we'd all appreciate it, I think.
I'm beginning to like this Other Greg guy. He's like Draft Two of the first Greg.
Oh great, here comes dependency hell. What version am I talking to? Will my arguments compile?
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