Banned by slutwalk

So I've been banned from the Slutwalk page for persistently disagreeing with them, in what they considered a hostile manner. Fair enough, I did get hostile with them since they were twisting my words and attacking my character based on opinions I don't actually have, and things I didn't actually say. But I digress, here are the reasons for my banning, straight from the horse's mouth:

Due to the repeated demeaning nature of Matthew Russell's commentary that refutes the experiences of rape survivors by calling some of them and those who speak up in support of survivors "delusional" and "spew[ing] all kinds of crap" he has been banned. He was given time continued to be abusive in refusing to acknowledge the occurrence of some sexual assaults. Thank you for those who tried to engage with him.

And here's a message they wrote to me directly

Matthew Russell, we've received repeated complaints of your commentary and aggressive refusal of the experiences of some assault survivors. It doesn't matter in what "context" you are "dismissive of rape experiences", it is incredibly harmful for you to suggest that the shared experiences of assault and harassment that many face are "delusional" and people are just "spew[ing] all kinds of crap". You cannot define someone elses experience of gender, harassment, rape and societal shaming and fear. Also, men in fact DO experience sexual assault and at alarming rates. A large part of SlutWalk in discussing the word used by the Toronto Police officer is to discuss language surrounding victim-blaming and slut-shaming with includes not only the word 'slut' but a variety of others and certain ideas that aim to shame those who have been assaulted and place responsibility on them. Your efforts in engaging in some dialogue and reading commentary here are in part appreciated but when you demean the abusive experiences of others and simply refer to ideas you do not agree with, especially in the vain of violence against women and men, in the ways you have you are crossing the line. We have given you time and quite a few allowances. Your blog is particularly demeaning to those who have survived sexual assault and continue to fight against damaging ideas of victim-blaming and slut- and sex-shaming. Due to all of this, you are being banned from our page.

Apart from the terrible writing itself, the content is also flawed. It seems to imply that context is irrelevant in discussion. It’s black and it’s white. Let me go back to an old standard to show how context affects morality, and in effect, whether or not certain actions and behaviors are appropriate.

- It is never okay to kill another human being.

At first glance, most people would agree with the statement above. I’ll be the first to say, it’s a pretty good rule of thumb. Before I give some obvious examples, can you think of a circumstance under which there may be an exception to this? Off the top of my head… to defend one’s own life, during war, Hitler, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, etc

This being said, I was accused of being dismissive of rape victims’ experiences; effectively accused of lacking sympathy for them. What I actually dismissed was the relevancy of such experiences to a point I was making. So is it ever okay to dismiss the relevancy of a rape victim’s experiences? Are a rape victim’s experiences relevant to all topics? My opinion is that some context is necessary here.

The argument I put forward was this:

Apart from the futility in trying it, reclaiming the word ‘slut’ in order to dismantle its use in offending women is not of any benefit to them because there is still a large number of words that can be used in its place for this purpose. A better goal would be to change the perspective of society in general towards promiscuity of women. The word itself is a pawn in a larger chess game.

In other words, if the word ‘slut’ was no longer considered an insult, one could still offend and ‘slut shame’ women just as easily by using other words instead (ie dirty ho, cunt, whore, bitch, etc).

The rebuttal to this point was along the lines of “When I was assaulted, I was called a slut” or ‘I got called a slut by all the mean kids at school’ or even as far as “A friend of mine was raped, and everyone said ‘well, she’s a big slut, so we can’t really take that seriously’”.

I countered these arguments by saying that in each of those circumstances, the same effect would have been possible without using the word ‘slut’, so those arguments are therefore irrelevant to this discussion. That being said, those experiences are valid to other things; psychology, sociology, anthropology, and certainly as evidence that there are people who do and say dickish things, but they do nothing against the argument I’ve put forward, and are therefore dismissible in this context.

The outrage from this was astounding; it was interpreted as “So you think rape victims’ experiences are irrelevant and don’t matter? You honestly don’t care about them or what they feel or think? You sir, are a douchebag!”. To anyone with high school level reading interpretation skills, that is not at all what I was saying, but this is definitely what was understood. I added fuel to the fire by calling that perspective “delusional”, ie an idea they held with certainty despite strong contradictory evidence.

This, in turn, was interpreted as “now you’re saying rape victims are all just delusional crybabies!?! What the hell is the matter with you! You monster!”

And then… the banning.

So to those of you who have been victims of sexual assault, I do feel sympathy for you. I wish you had not been the victim, and I hope you are not again a victim in future. For this reason, I continue to be adamantly against the Slutwalk campaign, because their messages will get girls assaulted. They encourage girls to disregard their safety on the grounds that “they shouldn’t have to look out for themselves, everyone else should just not rape or assault them”. Everyone, even most rapists I would think, agrees that it is morally wrong to rape and assault women, regardless of the circumstance. That said, it is still a good idea to take precautions for your safety, regardless of your gender.

Be safe all
Matt

My Experience with the Slutwalk ladies

Hello valued reader, I understand that you had a choice on blogs to visit with respect to this topic, and I want to thank you for choosing this one. I promise (without any guarantee of any kind) that you won't be disappointed with your choice.

So the slutwalk. I'm going to make the assumption that if you're reading this, you're probably familiar with what it is, and that it seems to be gaining momentum, branching out into various cities all over the world. Is this a good thing for women? for anybody? My opinion is that the only group of people this movement is good for are the founders, who now have a ton of credibility as activists, and rapists. Yes, I said it; my opinion is that this movement is good for rapists. "How can that be?" you ask, this is, among other things, an anti-rape movement supporting women's rights, no? Ironically, yes. But hear me out.

I am going to first give the definition of the word delusion, and keep it in mind for this next bit, where I will show you exactly what kind of horseshit they are selling to women all around the world.

Delusion: Solid belief that an idea is true despite strong contradictory evidence

The Slutwalk seems to have a set of ideas that they firmly believe. Here are a few that I’ve gathered from conversations with various people on their facebook forum, and from reading their website:

· Suggesting that a woman can take precautions to lower her chances of being sexually assaulted is equivalent to blaming victims

· What a woman is wearing will not, under any circumstances, increase her chances of being sexually assaulted

· Women should not have to modify their behavior to account for rapists/assaulters. Since women should not have to, we suggest they not take precautions against rape/assault. No one has the right to tell us what to do.

· Rape is completely about power, and never has anything to do with a desire for sex. Any opinion to the contrary is a misogynist myth perpetuated by ‘society’

· No matter what a woman does, and no matter what decisions she makes, she is equally likely, in any location, doing any activity, with any group of people, and dressed in any way, to be sexually assaulted or raped.

· What a woman wears is completely unrelated to her desire to attract men. If a woman dresses ‘slutty’, it is because she wants to feel good about herself. This decision is made completely independently of any consideration for how men will respond.

They refused to confirm or deny their stances on these conclusions explicitly, but here’s what the Slutwalk organization posted in response when I asked them to give me a “yes” or “no” answer on whether or not they supported these stances:

SlutWalk Toronto

Matthew, we encourage you to look through some of the conversations on this page, to access resources like these: http://www.sacha.ca/home.php?sec=17&sub=43 and many others, and to access resources and information from rape support and crisis support centres dealing with sexual assault and sexual violence. There are many studies available that have been posted here that outline what sexual assault is about and the correlations that have and have not been drawn.

Pretty vague.

That being said, I've spent quite a good deal of time on Slutwalk Toronto's Facebook page, and I've concluded that it is by and large a forum for delusional women to go and spew all kinds crap. Crap includes flawed analogies ridiculous claims about what they perceive to be an anti-women's rights culture that gets perpetuated by unfair stereotypes, a culture of victim blaming, and blah blah blah. I agree that a small handful of examples is not statistically significant, but nonetheless, I’ve hand-picked a few comments that I feel are representative of the ones on their page:

Here's a thought: if women should be attacked for dressy slutty, then masculine dressed women should be attacked for provoking guys. Especially if they are acting "gansta" cuz clearly they are asking for an ass kicking.

I can’t think of anyone making the argument a woman should be attacked for any reason, whether it’s choice of clothing, stupid behavior, wearing black on labor day, etc. I strongly suspect that the poster of this comment is making reference to the Toronto police officer’s suggestion that one of the things women could do to lower their odds of being sexually assaulted was to ‘not dress so slutty [when they go out places]’, (he obviously didn’t mean when they’re hanging out alone in their rooms). Since this group has chosen to be childish in its reading interpretation, it has immediately decided that more likely to be sexually assaulted = deserves to be raped/attacked. You really have to be reaching to get to that interpretation.

Here’s another gem:

Clothing contributes nothing as far as 'the likelihood of sexual assault' goes. A woman dressed in a 'slutty' outfit, is no more likely to be raped than a woman in track pants. Women get raped, no matter what they're wearing. You want a brutal truth to promote that is actually accurate? Try this one out: The single greatest contributing factor to being raped is simply being born a woman.

Try reading up on the subject and educating yourself before you go spouting off any more tired old rape myths that have long since been discredited and disproven.

I found that this kind of strategy was fairly commonplace for sidestepping reality in an effort to give credibility to their delusions.

Step 1: Make delusional claim.

Step 2: Say something along the lines of “I was a rape victim/assault victim/took a women’s studies class/read a book, so I know what I’m talking about.

Step 3: Condescendingly be dismissive of the obvious and imply the closed mindedness of the opponent. Here is how I responded to this comment, and the slutwalk admins threatened to ban me from their page for it:

Here's how I know you're lying to yourself, with this line here:

"A woman dressed in a 'slutty' outfit, is no more likely to be raped than a woman in track pants."

Obviously, this is true for a girl hanging out at home alone, or with a group of friends she's known for years in a safe place. But heeeere's the thing. If a girl dresses like a prostitute, and then goes down into club district, she's gonna get attention. Guys will grope, whistle, shout, and do all kinds of things that would constitute sexual harassment. Could this happen if she's dressing modestly? of course it could, but the chances of it are ridiculously reduced. This isn't something you need to read a book about. This isn't something you need to do a study on. Ask a girl friend of yours to try it. Go downtown with her one weekend while she's dressed in jeans and a sweater. Then go downtown with her while she's dressed like a prostitute the following night. You honestly think she's going to get the same courteous treatment?

How bout instead of being an arrogant jackass, you acknowledge reality. prick.

I’ll be the first to admit that the last line was harsher than I needed to be, but I stand by my opinion. The slutwalk people threatened to ban me from their page after that post. So far, I'm still not banned, not that I really care.

And now an oversimplification of rape:

"First of all, there is no such thing as "date rape." It is all "rape." Second of all, that happens because someone wants to prove - to themselves, to their victim, to someone else - that they CAN."

Right, and there is no such thing as a 4 iron, there are only golf clubs. And there is no such thing as lymphoma cancer, it is all cancer... and so on.

"we all fuck, there's no such thing as a slut!"

Preach it sister! We all drink beer, there’s no such thing as an alcoholic!

If mini skirts caused rape, and there were studies confirming this, we'd be having a "Lets Ban Mini Skirts" march all over the world.

Mini skirts don't cause rape any more than jewelry causes theft. No one is suggesting banning either one.

One last winner:

“Plus most women are raped in what they feel is a secure setting, and the rapist is someone they trust. You could argue that these women did everything right and were raped anyway... And it's far from being just a couple of isolated cases…”

Right… however, the vast majority of car accidents are non-alcohol related, but that doesn't mean I tell people "actually, alcohol has very little to do with driving impairment because most accidents involve no alcohol at all".
Similarly, I am aware that most rape cases are mostly done by guys the girl knows, but the ratio of rapes caused by strangers would probably shoot up if it all of a sudden became a popular passtime for girls to walk alone late at night in the dark alleys of unsafe neighborhoods dressed like prostitutes.

More frustrating than the terrible flawed claims they were making was the biased reading interpretation they have. I would try so hard to hold their hands as I poked through all the holes in their rock solid convictions. No matter what I wrote, the interpretation would always be “so what you’re saying, is that since there was something the girl could have done to not be raped, it’s her fault? That is disgusting sir, how dare you!”

Concepts like chance vs certainty, blame vs precaution, and exceptional circumstances vs generalizations… It all seems to be lost on them.

Here is an example of that:

Slutwalk Participant 1: If a guy rapes a woman he's on a date with, it's not because he's sexually aroused. Men can have a boner and not ejaculate without dying. If he rapes her on a date, yes, I would say that's oppressive. His boner, his sense of privilege and entitlement is more important than her rights to her body and right to not be raped.

Me: so the guy is going into the date hoping to get laid... now the girl is turning him down. He is no longer interested in having sex with her at this point, he just suddenly decides he wants to power trip and show his dominance over her. So he does what? He rapes her. But not cuz he wants to have sex with her, just cuz some switch flipped in his mind that suddenly made him a male supremacist. Sure, that sounds plausible, I'll go with that.

SP1: You think it's more plausible that his penis overpowered his sense of humanity and utmost respect for women that he totally wouldn't ever rape otherwise?

Me: Yes. The guy is an asshole if he's raping a chick tho, so I doubt such a person would have "respect for women" anyway, however you want to define that.

SP1: So, if you get an erection, you should be locked away like a werewolf during a full moon lest you go out and rape someone?

Me: Please explain how you came to this interpretation

SP2: Because that is what you are saying. That a man gets too horny so he can't control it. Instead of saying "He can't handle the fact that he was told 'no' so must force it on her." Which is the real fact.

Me: We’re not talking about a standard man, we’re talking about a rapist. The rapist's boner doesn't just turn him into an asshole, the guy was an asshole to begin with. How do I know this? Because he's raping a chick. The point is, the guy's "sense of humanity" was so dismal, that just about anything would make him do asshole-ish things, and being horny and wanting to do a chick is as good an incentive as any to commit rape when you have no moral scruples.

The interpretation you made tho, that leap to "oh, you're saying everyone with a boner should be locked up". that argument is akin to this line of reasoning:

"Hitler had a mustache, so did Stalin"

"oh, so you're saying all people with mustaches are war criminals who should be locked up then?"

In actual fact, all this statement implies... is that Hitler and Stalin both had mustaches. That's it.

SP2: You've been saying this whole time that all it takes is an overwhelming sense of "I want that" to make a man rape someone (sorry, kid, but that is what you're saying) Which implies that they are not responsible for their actions. Every time you even HINT that a woman could have done something to prevent her rape you are giving a rapist a pass and saying he wasn't at fault.

Me: As I said, not all men are rapists, and I only made that comment with respect to rapists. Besides, how does that imply they're not responsible for their actions?

SP2: You're saying that someone drove them to it, that their actions can be understood because they weren't strong enough to resist.

Me: Noooo... I'm saying they're assholes who should be locked up. I am also saying that even though they have no right to rape you, you still need to be conscious of your decisions and behavior because they affect the probability that you will be assaulted.

Then they got all “oh yeah? How bout you tell the MEN to STOP RAPING US INSTEAD!” Sure I’ll tell my entire gender to get on that for you. I’ll also tell the child molesters and kidnappers to stop their shenanigans while I’m at it. I’m sure they’ll all be very receptive… It just kind of went on like that in an endless circle of stupidity.

So why am I writing this? What’s the point of opposing these people? However flawed it is, everyone has a right to their opinion, right? Why have I spent a couple hours of my life learning about their motives and reading their opinions? It’s partly because I hate any group that ignores facts that are inconvenient to its agenda, but it’s mostly because if girls do listen to them and throw all caution to the wind, that’s going to have some consequences. By implying “don’t take any precautions against sexual assault”, this group is serving girls up on silver platters for those who would do them harm. I will lose my shit if these people end up getting non-profit status, or worse: government funding. Seem impossible? Who knows…

Thanks for reading!