RAPE DEFENDERS! - Awful Men Commenting on Rape - VERY TRIGGERING

Whenever I read an article about rape, I notice that the comments are full of angry men (and some women) lashing out at rape victims and those who support victims and oppose rape. & it really isn't surprising, because about 300 thousand people get sexually assaulted every year just in the U.S. according to the Department of Justice (via RAINN.org). There are less rapists than victims, but that is still hundreds of thousands of rapists.  Because of (mostly) men who dominate comments sections like this, many mainstream news sources are dominated by awful comments, as rational, compassionate people wisely choose not to look at the comments at all. However, I think we need to face what a significant portion of people truly believe when it comes to rape.

Here is a rundown of the sorts of comments you see:

- Rape jokes

- Stop talking about rape, what about FALSE rape accusations! 

- Oh, so now you are calling men looking at women rape?!

- Women lie about rape!

- Being drunk and regretting it isnt rape!

- Feminists lie about rape!

- Liberals lie about rape!

- People are profiting off lies about rape!

- These people are not real victims and this article is an insult to real victims!

- Slurs/insults like: bitch, retard, cunt, twat, feminazi, variations on idiot, other general name-calling

- Telling anyone who expresses support for rape victims or dissent that they are a bad person in some way

- Men get raped too!

- "Debunking" the story

- blaming the victim

- relentless 'debating" with someone who has asked them to stop, even after being asked to stop or ignored

- invoking rookie-level debate club terms like ad hominem and "logic", right after calling someone a retard

So I'm going to start by addressing the LEAST aggregious of these problems, because most rational, compassionate people can easily see the problems with most of these behaviors.  To me, the least bad thing here is bringing up male victims, but I will get back to that one; the second least worse imho is the "debunking" crowd, assuming they didn't engage in any of the other behaviors which is rarely the case. I think it's fine to point out errors in an article, study, argument, whatever, and even if you pointing out those errors doesn't seem like the best way to be an ally, it is better to have the correct information and that can only happen when people are willing to correct wrong info.  So let's assume that you see a "debunk" comment that isn't full of insults and inaccuracies, that even (as they rarely do) takes a moment to acknowledge that rape is a problem - what's so bad about that?

Well of course, the primary issue I have is that these posters rarely DO take a breath to acknowledge any sympathy for rape victims and often do start by name-calling and often cite untrustworthy sources, a misinterpretation, or are simply incorrect.   But that all aside, the main problem I have with this behavior is that these people seem to think, like a Creationist trying to "debunk" evolultion or a Holocaust Denier, that if they can find ONE discrepency that merits the silencing of anti-rape activism and we can all go back to pretending rape doesn't exist.  Instead of reading the article and thinking about it, they are immediately jumping to a "yeah, but-!" position, immediately googling furiously and copy-pasteing an article that often has more nuance than the commenter realizes, in an attempt to "disprove" the stories of rape victims and thus urge people to ignore them. It's also a  problem that these debunkers think they are being rebellious when in fact MOST articles about rape are full of comments like these, and ignoring and minimizing rape is the norm, just like how racists think it is rebellious to call black murder victims "thugs". It's a "truther" mentality, and it makes people focus on correcting the debunking instead of experiencing the emotionality of how terrible rape really is.

So what about those male rape victims?  Well, let me say that I am known in the internet wilds for being a hard-core, unrelenting, revolutionary, cunt-wielding patriarchy-smashing feminasti, as you can tell from my general writing.  However, believe it or not, like many feminists I (*gasp!*) have criticisms of feminism and feminists.  Like racism for example.  And leaving men who are hurt by patriarchy behind is a major problem to me.  Feminists do a lot to help male victims, such as being the people who made raping a man illegal, but we need to do more, because MRAs certainly aren't going to help, they're too busy harassing female rape victims. Male rape victims get left out by the mainstream media way too much and it sucks. So having said that, why am I sick of seeing men commenting "what about male victims?" on articles about rape?  Well, if I am dying of cancer and my mom comes to visit me, would it really be OK for my brother to come into my room and demand she leave immediately to talk about his AIDS instead? Or would it be more appropriate for him to join her in visiting me, and then to ask that she help care for him next? That may be a clumsy metaphor, so let me say it straight: When people are talking about female victims, we should be showing support for those women. When people talk about male victims, I dont see women saying "women get raped too!",  I see them supporting those men. Also, a lot of these comments arent really about supporting men at all, they are about shutting down women.

Now, let's say at this point you think I'm totally wrong about these two things, which I will grant is not unreasonable.  You are saying I am over reacting. Perhaps so. It's an easy thing to do when rape has hurt people you love.  However, I think it is incredibly irrational to defend all the other types of heinous comments people leave.  Angry (mostly) men responding to a story about rape by calling the victims liars, for example.  Oh, sure, it might seem to an uneducated person on a single article about, say, Cosby, that these people are simply expressing a difference of opinion.  but if you start reading comments about ANY rape victim, over and over again, you will see the same claims.

A popular claim is that women who have been raped were simply drunk and willing. I think this comes from the assumption that a barely-concious female body you are using to pleasure yourself with is not resisting, and maybe you are drunk also, so therefore it was willing. The idea that women simply decide after sex that it was a rape should be ridiculous on its' face but somehow people dont question it.  But THINK, dammit, WHY would women do this? IF they had sex and they enjoyed that sex shouldn't they be happy? If rape victims get so much abuse that some rape victims literally commit suicide due to bullying, and comments sections are full of people calling them liars, and there is no monetary value to an accusation, what's to be gained?  IF women are constantly falsely accusing, why is it that EVERYONE agrees that most victims never even report rape?  Why is it that in our personal lives we know women who tell you about a rape and don't even quite see it as a rape (for example, I know more than three women who said a man held them down and forced himself on them and didn't think it was rape even though they did feel scared. This thinking in victims is sadly most common with child victims because for obvious reasons they aren't taught about sex, consent and assault at all before being assaulted). 

The "she lies!" myth is inherently ironic because it presumes that we should assume a woman is lying without any actual proof that she is lying.  I hope I don't need to explain how that is hypocritical to you. In this view, rape victims are guily EVEN WHEN proven innocent - people are STILL calling vindicated victims like the - idk 40, 50? - Cosby accusers liars. Victims whose rapes were captured on film are called liars. Victims whose rapists were actually convicted are called liars.

Another thing these Rape Defenders commonly do is pretend that their position is the LOGIC! one.  This is really common with men trying to shut women up. They will say that whoever is talking to them is "relying only on emotion", even when she cites studies and is very calm, even when HE is angrily name calling and making false, unsubstantiated claim.  The hypocrtical irony HERE is that the entire reason people rape and defend rapists is emotional! They want power, they are angry, reading about rape makes them feel bad, so they defensively attack the article, the victim, the victim's supporters. It's also incredibly fucked up to expect people to not have emotions about rape, hopefully feeling sad and angry that rape occurs. We all SHOULD be feeling emotional about this.

Below are some screen shots of some of the stuff men said about rape that fit with the examples I've given of shitty behavior. These are all from one thread. I may add more photos to this same post in future. I believe many of these men are rapists themselves. Obviously this portion is extremely triggering. 'm sorry I didn't devote any time to transcribing this for people who can't see images, if you would like a transcription let me know in the comments. Until next time, take care of each other and support victims, not rapists. 

this is one of the few comments that FB has actually removed.

the article & highest rated comment. MRAs often send people to a comments section to flood it with bullshit, but this site, Vice, has a lot of asshole readers for whatever reason.

"White Knight" is an MRA concept - a man who defends women to get into their pants.

this is an example of a relentless commenter who "debates" someone who has told him to go the fuck away. Note the stereotyping. My majors have been in Creative Writing and my medical field career.

I apologize to people with an illness for using language that equates bigotry to illness.

Another relentless commenter 

the Bush comment is a running 9/11 "joke"

IF I recall correctly Revenge of the Nerds did have a rape scene in it, ironically - a man put on a mask and pretended to be a woman's boyfriend. Rape of a woman as revenge on a man. Incidentally, I think Joel's joke is kind of funny and not that awful tbh but I might go to Feminist Hell for even thinking that.

Denial

saying rape is based on how conventionally attractive someone is, even though men and children and the elderly and the dsabled (no I am not saying old and disabled people are unattractive, just not by conventional stndards) and overweight people and all sorts of people are victims, and it really isnt about attraction for at least a significant percentage of rapists.

Women offering a much-needed dose of reality. THANKS SISTERS!

I

Dear Fat Shamers: Get the Fucking Fat Facts!

I recently watched a viral video (Im not gonna bother to mention which unless requested) featuring a "funny" "comedian" making the easiest and laziest and oldest "joke" in the book - which boils down to "Fatty fat fat fat! Ha Ha!"  & Im fucking sick of it.

Seriously, at one point in the video she literally tells fat people to "STOP EATING". 

Like a lot of "fatties", I literally did make an attempt to completely stop eating. The results weren't pretty. Turns out, we need food to survive.  Without it, you get dizzy and tired and just generally make yourself sick.  As much as you might assume (and it is an assumption, a wrong one) that fat people are unhealthy, starving is the exact opposite of healthy. Starvation can cause serious problems, such as death. Your body can't just live off stored fat, it doesn't carry enough nutrients to properly fuel all your moving parts day by day.

Now I'm only a beginning bio student, so take what I write here with a grain of salt and do your own research, but I sure as hell am coming from a more scientific perspective than "JUST STOP EATING!!1!" lady, and I will be providing some actual citations. I know "jokes" are often given the excuse of not having to be factual, but when your "comedy" is really bullying and when it pretends to come from a "health" perspective, it needs a serious fact check.

When you starve, your body has to break down muscles for glucose and protein because it cannot get that from stored fat. Starvation has an effect on your organs, because the body doesn't just "eat" from your stomach fat but scary stuff like "atrophy of the heart" starts to occur, because your body doesn't recognize cardiac muscle as seperate.  People die when their organs begin to shut down.  You can starve to death and still appear "obese" because your body will start cannibalizing your muscles and organs at the same time it is drawing from stored fat. An obese person could starve to death just as fast as a thin person. The average person can survive about 21 days without food (NOT that long without water though) and so far I have been unable to find any data suggesting that overweight people could survive for longer, or much data about overweight people and starvation in general.  I did find several completely impossible and irresponsible claims, and lots of people online asking the question and making assumptions.  One man even claimed he hadn't eaten in a year! Not possible. Yet wierdly even that ficticious story included passages about liver damage and other common side effects of not eating.

I also found a lot of health experts debunking fat-phobic mythology online, thankfully. One common piece of advice (ie on WebMD) is that diets too low in calories aren't as effective long-term as more moderate caloric intake, and could even be dangerous. So even getting close to starvation IS NOT SAFE, yes even for those sub-human, ugly fatties.  In the video, Ms. Concern Troll says over and over that she wants fat people to stay alive. Telling fat people to starve themselves will literally kill fat people (even without mentioning issues like suicide). So if you actually want us to live, fucking stop it with that shit. 

There are scientific studies and data that suggests that overweight people tend to actually be HEALTHIER than average weight to underweight people, particularly the latter, which should be obvious - having an extra store of fat is better than literally not having enough nutrients to fuel your body to the point where the body has to start eating away at your heart muscle. Not only are fat people not "killing themselves" by merely being fat, but they are actually LESS LIKELY TO DIE than skinnier people! healthland.time.com/2013/01/02/being-overweight-is-linked-to-lower-risk-of-mortality/. So maybe we should start mercilessly mocking thin people and pressuring them to eat more ice cream, because "we dont want them to die"?

A lot of "common knowledge" about weight is actually just common bullshit. The BMI, for example, has been repeatedly called out by researchers as totally fucking bogus, as it doesnt take into account things like muscle mass and bone density, and would thus falsely label very fit, muscular people like Brad Pitt as "overweight". BMI is not even a good indication of how much fat a person has on their body, much less their overall health. www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php)

The shitty fat-hating video is almost entirely (at least pretending to be) based on the assumption that mockery and shame will encourage fat people to lose weight.  However, at least one recent study (http://www.livescience.com/47787-fat-shaming-weight-gain.html) has shown otherwise; shaming fat people actually can cause them to GAIN weight.  People who feel ashamed of their bodies and hate themselves are not going to have a positive attitude towards things like exercise, people full of negative emotions are not going to be able to pass up a cookie as easily.

Body positivity, on the other hand, invites the fat girls to dance at the club without fear of mockery, and in so doing, allows us more opportunities to stay active.

In one part of the video, she says that she wishes she could eat whatever she wants, implying fat people just eat whatever we want.  THAT fuckin shit made me laugh out loud, bitterly, both middle fingers raised high. 

As a fatty, I have had to be FAR more conservative in my eating habits than the people around me. People who don't gain fat as easily simply do not have to take as much care to avoid certain foods as I do. I watch thinner people around me eating fattening things like white pasta while they make fun of me for eating big bowls of lightly seasoned spinach.  I say no to ice cream outings when skinny people don't have to even worry about that. I watched my chronically-UNDERweight sister eating Burger King on a twice daily basis at a time when trying my best to eat almost nothing every day and even forcing myself to throw up healthy foods like salad out of guilt and self hate only got me down to 150 pounds, still looking chubby. Skinnier people who eat a hamburger are encouraged whilst I can't even eat a piece of bread without someone commenting on how "concerned" they are about my body (yes, I get shit no matter what I eat or dont eat!).  Anyone who hasn't lived a life as a fat person, especially as (seen by society as) female, really can't fully understand what it is like to be so constantly food-policed. It doesn't help!  Obsessing over food only leads to more obsessing over food! Just as starving can actually slow down weight loss. 

Fat shaming me, Just as people giving me shit for smoking cigarettes, or for not shaving my legs, doesnt help me. It just made me feel bad! & it didn't help me quit smoking or convince me that body hair on (assigned) females was EeeeeVIiiiilLLLLL! I could also throw in things I've been shamed about like being vegetarian (I'm not anymore, but not because of shamers) or being queer (I chose Pride). You get the idea. Whether a behavior or state of being is legit bad for you (smoking) or totally awesome (queerness), bullying DOESNT FUCKING HELP.

When you see someone who is fat, you don't know whether they 

- have a medical condition that causes them to gain weight

- have asthma or otherwise cant exercise very well to lose weight

- just lost 100 pounds

- work out daily, diet, and are committed to slowly and healthily getting in shape

- tend to eat very healthfully naturally 

- maybe just dont have a lot of time to worry about their body between the kids and the job

- just had a baby

- have recovered from an eating disorder

- are suffering from depression that includes self-hatred and dont need your shit 

- or hey, maybe they just like to eat what the fuck they want and don't give a fuck and didn't ask for your fucking opinion, bitch.

And EVERY fat person already knows they're fat, thanks.

So spare me your "concern". You don't know me. My body is awesome and it is none of your damn business.

Eeeeviiiiil Femisms vs. Actual Real Feminism

OK, let's look at the actions feminists have achieved/are working on:

- Legalized Female Vote (a right men already had)

- Legalized female property ownership (a right men already had)

- Successfully allowed women to attend school from primary education to college (a right males already had)

- Changed the legal definition of rape to include more victims including men (giving more protection to men and women)

- Opened up the job market to give women equal OPPORTUNITY, continues to push for more job inclusion of women (a right men already had)

- fighting for women to not be paid less just because they are women.

- Fighting against victim-blaming in rape and abuse cases, including for children and men.

- worked and working in solidarity with the LGBT movement

- Questioning gender norms so that everyone can do whatever they want regardless of gender (benefits everyone)

- increasingly working in solidarity with anti-racist movements under concept of intersectionality.

Now lets look at anti-feminist claims:

- BUT CIRCUMCISION!! - not invented by feminists, not endorsed by feminists, many feminists are active intactivists, and the feminist concept of bodily autonomy helped launch the modern intactivist movement

- BUT DIVORCE COURT! CHILD CUSTODY! Most judges are still men, as are most law makers. Feminism opposes the idea that men are naturally bad at taking care of kids.

BUT NOT ALL MEN! the feminist idea of holding rapists accountable for rape comes from the idea that men are adults who can control themselves.

BUT I PAID FOR DINNER! the feminist push for equal pay and job opportunities means we do not want men to have to pay for dinner.

Basically, the things that men have against feminism tend to be things that are actually promoted by sexism.

I'm not sure how to insult this new anti-feminist hate group nonsense appropriately because calling it a sickness is an insult to the sick, calling it insane insults the insane (which is a very real issue, actually, because being mentally ill is not the same as being irrational, bigoted, etc and mental illness stigma really sucks), calling it stupid is an insult to all the good people who aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer due to no fault of their own, calling it shit is an insult to our body's useful waste disposal process, etc. etc. Maybe we could start insulting people by comparing them to bigots because there are few things worse in the world than mindless hate.