On this thing called "rape culture"

Edwin wrote:

Virginia city’s rape policy was ‘Assume the victim is lying’ until last week [Raw Story]

The city of Norfolk, Virginia only last week changed its official police policy away from assuming that victims of sexual assault are lying about what happened to them. According to Think Progress, Norfolk police classified all sexual assault claims as “unfounded” by default.

If you think about this and the amount of rapes/assaults that surround the military (there's a Naval Base in Norfolk) it gets even more disgusting.

I was going to post I the feminism thread, but this might be more appropriate here:
I am a False Rape Allegation Statistic @ Almost Diamonds
This woman's story is absolutely heartbreaking and well... I have no words.

Eleima wrote:

I was going to post I the feminism thread, but this might be more appropriate here:
I am a False Rape Allegation Statistic @ Almost Diamonds
This woman's story is absolutely heartbreaking and well... I have no words.

Sweet Jesus! I couldn't get more than a few lines in. That's unreal.

If you can, finish reading it.

Absolutely despicable. This is someone who made [em]every effort[/em] to do the right thing, who persevered beyond the point any human should have to, through treatment that was frankly criminal. And still... Ugh.

I'm not sure if this should be in the "Horrible News Stories" thread or here (both?) but:
Montana teacher gets 30 days in jail in rape of 14-year-old student who later kills herself

The judge who sentenced him should be disbarred (or defrocked or whatever they do to get rid of judges).

Baugh defended his ruling. He told CNN he believes Rambold is "treatable" and a "low risk to re-offend."

Two videotaped interviews with the teenager -- one with the police department and one with the defense attorney -- were played in court, he said.

"She seemed older than her chronological age," he said. "Basically what we had was a troubled young girl."

He added, "I simply did not have the evidence to conclude that her taking her life was because of her sexual offense by Mr. Rambold."

I give the mother credit for fighting:

Incredulous at what had happened, Hanlon shouted at the court, "You people suck."

"She wasn't even old enough to get a driver's license," Hanlon said in a statement released by her attorney. "But Judge Baugh, who never met our daughter, justified the paltry sentence saying she was older than her chronological age. I guess somehow it makes a rape more acceptable if you blame the victim, even if she was only 14."

No kidding, Nevin73. I was thinking of posting this too. The teacher had been kicked out of one rehab program for breaking rules regarding sexual contact and contact with minors, in addition to having been warned by school officials not to touch or be alone with female students 4 years prior to the rape..

Nevin73 wrote:

The judge who sentenced him should be disbarred (or defrocked or whatever they do to get rid of judges).

Impeached is the word you are looking for.

Nevin73 wrote:

I'm not sure if this should be in the "Horrible News Stories" thread or here (both?) but:
Montana teacher gets 30 days in jail in rape of 14-year-old student who later kills herself

Very much related: The Myth of the Teenage Temptress
Warning, some content is NSFW and is, well... Gives me homicidal urges, I guess.

Eleima wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

I'm not sure if this should be in the "Horrible News Stories" thread or here (both?) but:
Montana teacher gets 30 days in jail in rape of 14-year-old student who later kills herself

Very much related: The Myth of the Teenage Temptress
Warning, some content is NSFW and is, well... Gives me homicidal urges, I guess.

There's no link there, Eleima.

I'm guessing this is what that should link to:

http://www.xojane.com/issues/stacey-...

Serves me right for posting at 7am. Thanks Cheeze, that's the one.

Just read that. The last sentence says it all.

Oh jeez. D: Serious trigger warning on this one. Recounting multiple rapes, victim blaming, slut shaming, you name it.

When I Didn’t Consent. Why I reported. Why I didn’t. (Skepchick)

That may be the most upsetting thing I've ever read.

Thank you again to everyone who has offered their love and support. I appreciate it. And thank you to everyone who wants to make a change. Let’s start by teaching our children boundaries. Respect their spaces. Respect their bodies. Respect that it’s never okay to touch someone who doesn’t want to be touched.

Don’t tell kids they have to give a kiss or a hug to anyone.

Don’t tell kids to kiss or hug someone who doesn’t want it.

If a child asks you to stop touching them in any way, stop. (For example, I will not pick up my daughter if she asks me not to pick her up, and I will put her down if she tells me to. Exceptions are for situations where she is in danger if I put her down, and I explain that to her. She doesn’t always get it, but I will keep explaining it to her.)

If you see children not respecting someone’s physical boundaries, step in, tell them what they’re doing is wrong.

If you see a child fighting back when their space isn’t being respected, do not correct them. They’re not wrong to defend their bodies. Correct the person who is not being respectful.

What else can you do? Share these stories. Read them. Read them again. And keep supporting the people who tell them.

This weekend at PAX, it was announced that the biggest regret that the staff of Penny Arcade have is their choice to pull the Dickwolves Merch, they feel they should have stood by their creation and continued their support of Dickwolves.

Rather than embedding the whole video, I’ve linked to important part of the video below. If you wish to see the entire panel for context, you can still do so by following the link.

http://www.twitch.tv/pax/b/455394585...

So…. I don’t honestly know if I’m more upset by the fact that they regret removing the shirts, or by the disgusting audience reaction to that statement. Seriously, what audience applauds bringing back a joke that marginalises anyone whose life is affected by rape or the threat of rape?

A crowd cheering over that is... So damn creepy.

clover wrote:
If a child asks you to stop touching them in any way, stop. (For example, I will not pick up my daughter if she asks me not to pick her up, and I will put her down if she tells me to. Exceptions are for situations where she is in danger if I put her down, and I explain that to her. She doesn’t always get it, but I will keep explaining it to her.

I'm stunned I'd never considered this in dealing with my own son. I do offer him options like "you have to hold my hand or ride on my shoulders, but it's not safe to walk off on your own", but I have been as guilty as any parent of the "emergency rugby carry" when I just need to get him where he needs to be.

Not forcing kisses is something to consider as well. I always ask, but his grandma doesn't, and he doesn't like it. I need to put my foot down on that.

Important lessons to be learnt and taught here. Something to think about.

Just when I was starting to waver about going to PAX East...

Mystic Violet wrote:
This weekend at PAX, it was announced that the biggest regret that the staff of Penny Arcade have is their choice to pull the Dickwolves Merch, they feel they should have stood by their creation and continued their support of Dickwolves.

Rather than embedding the whole video, I’ve linked to important part of the video below. If you wish to see the entire panel for context, you can still do so by following the link.

http://www.twitch.tv/pax/b/455394585...

So…. I don’t honestly know if I’m more upset by the fact that they regret removing the shirts, or by the disgusting audience reaction to that statement. Seriously, what audience applauds bringing back a joke that marginalises anyone whose life is affected by rape or the threat of rape?

A crowd cheering over that is... So damn creepy.

I think this is a nice encapsulation of the problem the PA folks have. They, at best, just don't get how stupid their public commentary on issues like this is... or they do know but enjoy trying to make it a feud for Internet points. Who can even tell at this point, agh.

I mean, it's just another situation where I think I get what they mean - the follow up commentary after the weird "YEAH F*** THE PC POLICE!" cheering was that it's better just not to engage. And I think when we were talking about this even here a few years ago, there were several people who agreed that if they had just made the comic and moved on, the defense of "well this is just the type of comic we make sometimes" would have held water. But they decided to make a special case of it, and now, in this video, the statement was - "Pulling it was a kind of engagement, and then you really engaged, which was a result of that." Trying to say that last statement is really telling, because it's an attempt to pull responsibility out of their hands. Effectively, "Oh, once we pulled the merch from the shelves, we had no choice but to go saying terrible crap."

Honestly, I agree on some level - I think part of an ideal response would have included not pulling the merchandise. I'm still in the camp where I believe the comic itself was not really a problem, but the ensuing responses and actions were exceptionally problematic. So the whole thing became a huge problem through their own missteps, and to this day they seem incapable of understanding what decent adults would do about it.

Every time I think maybe I shouldn't continue my boycott of PA/PAX, they go and do something to remind me why I started in the first place.

They pulled the merch because people said it would make them feel unsafe at PAX. Guess that doesn't matter anymore.

Also on a much less important note, the merch isn't the art and its kind of silly to think of standing behind it.

If he'd said "saying anything about the dickwolves strip instead of just let it stand on its own"? That could [em]maybe[/em] be interpreted as remorse for doing something that caused a blow-up. But regretting [em]pulling the shirt[/em]? That's not about regretting "engaging with people".

The first comments from people who were offended happened on August 12, 2010, the day after the comic ran.

The sh*t-storm started the next day, on August 13, 2010, the day the PA folks "responded" to the criticism, which of course involved Krahulik running his mouth off. That lead to a lot more people objecting very loudly.

On October 6, 2010, they announced that they'd be selling dickwolf T-shirts. Krahulik was an ass and mocked trigger warnings on that day, but Holkins is the one who announced that they'd be making merch.

On December 1, 2010, they expanded the line of dickwolf products to women's T-shirts and pennants.

On January 26, 2010 (two days after someone who was invited to PAX as a guest publicly refused to attend and cited the handling of this incident), the merchandise was removed from the store.

So... that's almost half a year of "engaging" before they pulled the shirts.

Quit f*cking Going To PAX Already, What Is Wrong With You (Elizabeth Sampat)

I'm just going to link this here, because it says pretty much everything I want to say.

I tried a couple of times to write a post myself that said the same sort of things, only nicer... But I just can't.

I will never hate anybody who keeps going to or otherwise being involved with PAX after this latest round of bullsh*t... but I will be disappointed and sad.

There are a bunch of other awesome conventions out there in the world. Attend those. Volunteer at those. Demonstrate your stuff at those. And if you're sad because a bunch of friends are going to keep going to PAX and you won't see them because you won't be there? Be sad that [em]a bunch of friends are going to keep going to PAX[/em], and encourage them to move on to something else.

I never thought that the dickwolves comic was that bad. I didn't laugh at the rape aspect of it, but I did laugh at the "I'm only here to complete a quest" punchline. PA's reaction to the backlash, on the other hand, was horrific. It is obvious that Krahulik and Holkins are jackasses of the highest order.

But are there real alternatives to PAX? Doesn't each major "con" have it's own focus? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GenCon focused on board games, DragonCon focuses on geek culture in general and PAX focuses on video games. What else is there that gets the major releases and new stuff represented in a big way?

Hypatian wrote:

Quit f*cking Going To PAX Already, What Is Wrong With You (Elizabeth Sampat)

I'm just going to link this here, because it says pretty much everything I want to say.

I'm not trying to sound contrarian for its own sake, but that article reaaaaallly glosses over things when it says "Mike and Jerry posted a rape joke. They were respectfully called out on it. Mike lost his sh*t. People continued to try to reason with him." Let's be honest, there were a great many very angry, very emotional and not at all respectful articles, blogs, and attacks made on the PA folks at that point. Two of the blogs that got a great deal of attention were extremely angry and insulting towards PA and those two in general.

I'm not excusing the behavior, but I'm not one for glossing over the fact that a (far, far) secondary problem about all of this is how some people try to talk about it.

edit -

Nevin73 wrote:

But are there real alternatives to PAX? Doesn't each major "con" have it's own focus? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GenCon focused on board and card games, DragonCon focuses on geek culture and weird, hard-to-believe stories of sexual escapades in general and PAX focuses on video games. What else is there that gets the major releases and new stuff represented in a big way?

Fixed that for you.

Let's say there really aren't any other alternatives? So what? Do you HAVE to go to a video game con?

Bloo Driver wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

Quit f*cking Going To PAX Already, What Is Wrong With You (Elizabeth Sampat)

I'm just going to link this here, because it says pretty much everything I want to say.

I'm not trying to sound contrarian for its own sake, but that article reaaaaallly glosses over things when it says "Mike and Jerry posted a rape joke. They were respectfully called out on it. Mike lost his sh*t. People continued to try to reason with him." Let's be honest, there were a great many very angry, very emotional and not at all respectful articles, blogs, and attacks made on the PA folks at that point. Two of the blogs that got a great deal of attention were extremely angry and insulting towards PA and those two in general.

I'm not excusing the behavior, but I'm not one for glossing over the fact that a (far, far) secondary problem about all of this is how some people try to talk about it.

edit -

Nevin73 wrote:

But are there real alternatives to PAX? Doesn't each major "con" have it's own focus? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GenCon focused on board and card games, DragonCon focuses on geek culture and weird, hard-to-believe stories of sexual escapades in general and PAX focuses on video games. What else is there that gets the major releases and new stuff represented in a big way?

Fixed that for you.

Thanks. And now I think I might want to check out DragonCon.

SixteenBlue wrote:

Let's say there really aren't any other alternatives? So what? Do you HAVE to go to a video game con?

In my case, no, I've never been to any "con" though I'd like to go to one someday. But for other people, I'm sure the answer is that they really want to go to a video game focused convention.

SixteenBlue wrote:

Let's say there really aren't any other alternatives? So what? Do you HAVE to go to a video game con?

Apropos of nothing, but I'd be curious to see the Venn diagram of 1) people who do/don't boycott Orson Scott Card media and 2) people who do/don't boycott PAX.

Are there people who -- possibly disdainfully, possible eagerly -- consume Card's stuff but refuse to attend PAX?

Are there people who hold their nose to the politics and attend PAX but refuse to read Card's books?

I don't know the answer. I am just curious.