*head desk*
*head desk*

Are those guys from the school? Did they pose for that picture? If so, women should pass it around and COMPLETELY IGNORE THEM (besides writing a letter to the editor of the paper, etc).

And it's telling that the white boys have an "Asian" coach, too . . . .

Well, then you couldn't make the oh so funny joke about his name, see?
"F. Yu"

It's funny, because it's Asian. Asian people have funny names! Why, maybe they can treat us to great jokes about someone with the last name "Poo" next! Gods, that'd be a riot!

They're fucking clever guys, there, at UCSD. Racism and misogyny- they're funny!

Please, somebody tell me that sign is photoshopped and that there's not a signprinting place that actually agreed to print it for them...

Yeah, roymac, I was so pissed off I missed the F. Yu pun. CLEVER!

Racism and misogyny- they're funny!

Fucking hell. This and the last post (about the 9-year-old being raped) in a row and I'm totally sick to my stomach.

I'm with Semelee--I hope that picture is widely distributed and comes back to haunt those assholes in all kinds of painful, painful ways. Privileged, idiot assholes.

Whoa, these guys win first place. Their article was actually well-written, which makes me think they must have some crumb of intelligence, which makes me even sicker.

Ugh.

Is there, like, some sort of asshole rehab place the school could send them? Where they had to learn feminism 101 and why making fun of sexual assault is un-funny?

It also makes you wonder what kind of education they're receiving at UCSD (as well as, you know, K-12), that no one at the paper thought second-guess the idea--or at least, it got published anyway despite any internal dissent.

good lord.
also, roymac, i heart you.

Damn! and here I thought I I might have stood a chance for the asshole award for publicising the fact that female sexual abuse of children is considered "normal" here in America!
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume13/j13_1_2.htm

Personally, I'm happy when assholes make their messages clear.

It's the next best thing to wearing a sign that says "I'm a Misogynist".

Are you fucking kidding me? This isn't a real group is it? Because the article makes it sound like these fuckfaceshitbags really are in some kind of rape group. I think the women at their school need to go after them with baseball bats and fucking beat the shit out of them. I'm SO PISSED!

De-lurking just to say that being an alumni of UCSD and running the only feminist club on the campus I am so not surprised. Yay for white male privilege...or something.

My daughter is a freshman at UCSD and had not heard of this. She is going to follow up and see what happened. Clearly it didn't make a big splash which is really pathetic.

I'll let you know what I find out.

Hope you all noticed that the Women's Center at UCSD is holding a letter writing get-together about this. Good to know people are speaking up there on campus! I hope they read this blog and realize we're all hopping mad alongside them. Infact, I'm going to email them the link.

It's the next best thing to wearing a sign that says "I'm a Misogynist".

True. Sneaky misogyny is that much harder to pin down and deal with. These guys are letting it all hang out . . .

I'm the one who forwarded the link to the blog editors. This has not made a splash on campus, perhaps because it pales in comparison to the Koala, a racist, misogynist campus "humour paper." I have to admit, I haven't been following this too closely, but the ONLY letters to the editor published in the Guardian's online archives (that I can find) claim that this is NOT OFFENSIVE! I hope the Women's center has been more on the ball than I have.
http://ucsdguardian.org/viewarticle.php?story=opinion05&year=2007&month=04&day=12

Actually, one of the letters to the editor linked by LS497 makes this seem not so bad, although still tasteless.

Apparently, in real life, only 9 out of 10 UCSD students surveyed agreed that rape is not OK. That was reported in the normal edition of the paper. So the satire (which focuses on that bizarre 10% who apparently think rape is ok) seems to me to be more along the lines of satirical commentary on a WTF-inducing real life news item.

I find this article more weird than disturbing (though it is disturbing). Do 10% of UCSD students really not require consent before sex? How does the rape team know who is a member of that 10%? Why is it nobody likes the experience of wining and dinning for a few dates before they decide to get intimate anymore? When I was dating the real thrill for me was in working hard to earn a woman's respect and trust. I know I have been out of the college loop for over 10 years (actually I never really was in the college loop), but I still find it hard to believe that it has become this easy for young men to "get some." I am curious to know what is your opinion of the 10% of UCSD students that do not require consent before sex? Don't you think this is hugely degrading to women?

Ranter - the article is a joke, a satire. There isn't actually a rape club.

nausicaa and Ranter,

I sort of hope you two are just trolls. Anyway, various professional surveys have found that between 10% and 11% of college-age males have forced a sex act on someone. This /is/ sexual assault/rape. Our culture does not talk about these things enough in a serious manner, which is why more people are not aware of it/do not take it seriously. This kind of "satire" however, is inappropriate, if for no other reason than the psychological affect it can have on the 1 out of 4 college-age women who have experienced rape. It is /not/ funny in any sense of the word, and when you see stuff like this you feel there are people who are not treating it with an appropriate level of seriousness. I mean, if students at your school just died in a traumatic accident, you would not see "satire" about the event published in the school paper, and if you did there would be major outcry among students and staff.

Don't you think this is hugely degrading to women?

Erm...
As nausicaa points out, the article is supposed to be a joke.

Also, I sort of thought that Jessica's feelings were pretty clear. What, with the title being "And the asshole award goes to..." and her comments "Note to college boys who think rape is funny: it's not. And using it as an April Fools' Day joke isn't even clever or fucking original--it's telling. Assholes."

I've occasionally had trouble parsing things like this, though. Maybe I'm wrong?

So, what about it, Jessica? Are you using "Asshole" as code for "Totally awesome persons with whom I am in total agreement and think are awesomer than anyone else"? And when you say it's not funny or clever, do you really mean "completely awesomely funny and totally awesome and clever in a most awesome way"?

...

What?

...I'm just asking an innocent question.

Yeah, hazmatix, because that's what that paper is saying.

*eyeroll*

Okay seriously...

What the fuck is with the abundance of college papers printing stupid "funny" rape stories written by assholes who obviously don't understand how to do satire?

I don't get it. Why have so many people decided that sexual assault is now a joke? Don't they understand that a lot of women (and MEN), many of which who go to their school, are victims of rape and that by printing something like this, it's like you're rubbing it in their face? I understand that you can never print "safe" things that will never offend people, but I think this goes beyond offending somebody. I can't imagine being a rape victim on that campus and reading something like that.

Oh, this just hurts my head... Why would anyone think this is funny? How many times does this have to happen? And then these guys will get all defensive because we're all just to sensitive because of all that estrogen. NNnggg... I need an aspirin.

Oh god. I attend university with assholes like this?!

Someone who would pose for a picture like that should never receive a diploma from that college.

Repugnant in the extreme.

Well college papers joking about rape definitely is not original. My school CSU Long Beach has the same problem. Our weekly student newspaper also did an April Fools satire issue in which they had an article written from the perspective of a rapist. Our campus had four sexual assaults reported last semester and so the Union newspaper decided to write an oh-so-funny article by the "rapist." The writer encouraged women "shave [their] pussies" to celebrate their freedom while he skulked around with his "dick in [his] hand for good luck."
This is only the most recent example of that paper writing sexist and degrading articles about women, feminist women in particular. Any protests are met with the same standard defense: Feminists can't take a joke. Because rape is HILARIOUS.

Here is a response from my daughter who is a current student at UCSD. She attempted to register and post this herself but was unsuccessful:

"As a current UCSD student I was shocked to hear about this article so late after it was published. (it was part of the disriGUARDIAN April fool's issue). I have a friend who writes for that paper so I asked her about it. The article was meant to be a satire (as so many failed humor articles on this matter are). It was written in response to the fact that, at the beginning of the year, there were posters all over campus that had a message, the gist of which was that 90% of tritons (our mascot) make sure they have consent before engaging in sex. I think the article is supposed to draw attention to the fact that the poster, which essentially state that 10% of UCSD students think it's okay to rape, makes 10% seem like a small number. In reality 10% in a campus of about 22,000 is a HUGE number. I think we can all agree that rape is NOT FUNNY, and the writer of this article doesn't think so either, but writing a good satire like The Onion's "I'm Totally Psyched About this Abortion" or "A modest proposal" is extremely difficult to pull off.

After the article was published the women's center on campus sent a flood of letters to the editor, several of which were published in the next issue, along with counter arguments defending the article. Even though every year people get extremely upset (rightfully so) about at least one article in the special issue, The Guardian continues to do it every year. "

Jessica didn't make any comment about the 10% student body that do not require consent before sex. That was what I thought was hugely degrading to women. But yes the picture is also hugely degarding (but she did make a comment about that).

Ranter, I think it's pretty safe to assume that I think anyone who says they "do not require consent before sex," you know, RAPISTS, are assholes.

The joke was in very poor taste, there is no question about that, but would we be discussing the rape problem at college campuses if they had not made the joke? What is degrading to women is that women themselves are part of the 10% that apparently agreed that rape is OK. But the fact that anyone thinks that rape is OK is degrading to women.

Actually yes Ranter, "we" (or this site, or feminists... whatev) are frequently discussing rape issues and trying to raise awareness about them.

These stupid jokes do not need to be made in order for women to be aware of sexual violence, or in order for women's groups to raise awareness about the issue and prompt discussion, if that's what you were implying.

"But the fact that anyone thinks that rape is OK is degrading to women."

No one is disagreeing with you. I don't see what you're arguing.

"women themselves are part of the 10% that apparently agreed that rape is OK."
Where are you getting taht from?

dear ranter,

we do discuss the rape problem at college campuses. it's not a new topic on feministing or among feminists.
also, you convolute any point you might be making by insinuating that it is up to the original post to dissect ANY point that might be made by the content of its topic, like your comment above about jessica not noting the 10% quote. you may notice that a lot of posts here are of a 'quick hit' nature. that's how feministing rolls. this is not to condescend, but you mentioned earlier that you discovered this site a day and a half ago. and it's AWESOME that you feel comfortable posting, cuz this community loves a little discussion. but your 36 hours might not be enough to act like you know what the moderators are up to, assuming you don't know them. and i assume that you don't. and it shows.

So stellaelizabeth, what do you suggest to do about that 10% that we both believe is degrading to women?

And once upon a time I wanted to go to UCSD...

*head desk*

well Ranter,

women's groups on college campuses constantly push for education for their male and female students, to better understand what exactly rape is, why it's wrong, and how to avoid it. They also push for more progressive school rules to make it easier to hold people responsible for sex crimes. They also push for resources so that survivors can receive better support and counseling.

What are you doing about that 10% ranter?

I sense by the direction of your questions that you are on this site simply to disagree with the bloggers. Do you have an anti-feminist agenda, would you say?

I don't go to campuses but in my work there is an even worse rape problem. There are a lot of criminals in my line of work, because they were heavily recruited by the government. I have made an effort to give an ear to the women I work with, and I have given on the spot counseling to men I work with about inappropriate behavior towards women. The fight to teach men that "no" means no is a difficult one, but often times I find women who also don't understand that they have the power to say "no."

At the moment my agenda is to find out as much about this site as possible.

Hmmm... apparently I'm the only one who found this amusing.

At first the picture and headline were horrifying. But after reading the text, it seemed to me they were pointing out how horrible the 10% who don't require consent are. Wasn't that the point? Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong, but I thought it was pretty clear that they were lampooning the rapists, not in any way supporting rape.

In general, when I'm trying to find out about a new website, I lurk for a long time before I start posting, so I can get the lay of the land, figure out who's who and what's what. That's what I did for a long time before I started posting here.

Just a suggestion.

Ranter, assuming you are sincere, might I suggest reading the site for more than a day or two or looking through the archives to understand what feministing is all about. All I’ve seen from you so far is criticisms that the bloggers, especially Jessica, aren't doing enough or aren't feminist enough. While it may not be your intention, you're coming across as a jerk who is just here to take up space and complain, and if that's your intention, I feel pretty comfortable in telling you that no one here is interested, and you will soon find yourself ignored.

I would call “Baby, fix me dinner after you clean my golf clubs� degrading. Thinking that you don’t need consent for sex is more along the lines of disturbed-criminal-predator than merely degrading.

Gee and to think that I use to argue passionately with both men and women that feminist would be fun to chat with.

OK I guess the fun is over (or perhaps never was).

Please take care

But I do hope that 10% at college campuses decreases

ranter your approach has consisted of: i'm a feminist, how can jessica call herself a feminist, there should be an alternative to hip hop but no critical discussion of misogynistic lyrics...
which is a rough and tumble approach. so if you didn't have 'fun' when the 'chat' became challenging, please don't leave your 36 hours at feministing with ye olde "those rotten feminists sure are a bunch of bitches, and i thought we'd
have fun!" sentiment. sleep on it, or something. if you're not up for discussion or defensiveness at comments like what i mentioned and others, fine. but this recent 'gee' business in your comments might bear some consideration.

Oh noes! We ain't fun to chat with!
Blow me down!
Ladies, we have failed to entertain this man.
For shame.
I suggest a moment of silence to reflect on our inability to be fun to chat with.

All done?
Me too.
I am sick of being polite to this jam-roll. (Dig that cockney rhyming slang!)

Aw. The poor guy didn't have fun talking to us. Poor widdle him. All he did was come on to a feminist website, make a number of antifeminist statements, adopt an attitude of more-feminist-than-thou, tell us that we shouldn't analyze music lyrics, tell us that we can't be feminists if we're pretty, and tell us that unmarried childless women are like children. Imagine that! He said argumentative things and...the argued with him!

Poor widdle guy. Those Big Bad Feminists blew his house down!

not to mention "I thought chat with feminist would be fun" makes it sound like feminists are some rare species or something, like you don't generally talk to them, or that you think it's a game. And "fun" in what sense of the word? To see if you could challenge them?

Well here's a tip: there are a lot of people identifying as feminists who have a lot of individual experience and individual beliefs. People on this website are not here just to b.s. about stuff they don't have experience with. They are interested in serious discussion (and sometimes also ragging about misogyny in a lazier fashion, simply b/c we don't have other outlets for that).

So if you honestly want to have a discussion, you first honestly need to try and understand the website and where the bloggers are coming from. They aren't here just for "fun" or just because feminism is a game to them. These are issues that affect people and that are important to people.

And for the record, most feminists are also interested in building women's confidence and understanding of sexual violence issues to make them less likely to become victims. However, when most of society does not put enough emphasis on holding men responsible for date rapes, I think it's unfair to imply that feminists on a site which explore many issues from several perspectives are somehow not placing enough responsibility on women to prevent crimes. roymacIII had an eloquent post about this in a recent thread, but the responsibility is ultimately on both partners' shoulders to make sure that the other one is doing only things they want to be doing. That is not at all an unreasonable goal, and if we met that goal no one would be saying to victims "oh, but you should have said "no" sooner/louder /with more confidence/more definitively" (/that/ kind of place responsibility on the victim attitude is what perpetuates these problems)

Okay that rambled a bit, but hopefully some points came through...

I am particularly interested in what his line of work is.
Criminals recruited by the government?!
Sounds like fun! Or a video game/action movie!

P.S. EG, I think you're GRRREEAAT!

Now, unless you're in my timezone, and it's 5pm on Thursday afternoon, y'all should get some sleep!
Those timedates are making me sleepy!

Lol, internet drama!

I agree the article is in fairly bad taste, particularly due to the poor delivery. Obviously it exists in a specific context (the poster re: 90%/10%) but doesn't allude to that fact beyond the "triton 10% bit." It could have been done quite a bit more tactfully and interestingly than it was. Maybe something like "the hunt for the triton 10%" about trying to find out just who these secretive people are, or perhaps "You could be one of the 10% and not even know it!" Sort of lampooning the whole concept (that 10% is outrageous) without glamorizing, even in jest, actual rape.

Why is it that 'college humor' so rarely is?

Aw, thanks, anorak!

I now can't help picturing you as Tony the Tiger!

ouchage.

Why oh why oh why? What part of this is funny? Even if it was non offensive, its still a pretty weak joke.

1) Find out their names
2) Set up a site with their names, the photo, a piece on why they are morons and links to decent sites about sexual violence etc
3) Make sure it comes top or near to the top of any Google search for their names.
4) I'd like to see them try to run for office in a few years' time, or get a nice law job.

I don't know; I'd rather see 1-4 done to college guys who have actually committed rape, or threatened rape, or made other violent threats against women. I have a sneaking suspicion that at least one of these kids honestly didn't think through what he was doing, and that this could be a teaching moment not only for the college community, but for some of the perpetrators.

This is assuming that they find some way to show penitence, of course. Anyone who dismisses the UCSD Women's Studies letter writing campaign and goes on his cocky way deserves the Google treatment. But I can't help but think that there are some people who just screwed up.

Maybe I'm being too gentle here. I just know that I've said some things during my lifetime that sounded much worse outside of my skull than they sounded inside of my skull, and peer pressure has often been a factor in that. Nothing anywhere near this bad, but then I've probably had better peers.

Cheers,

TH

Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong, but I thought it was pretty clear that they were lampooning the rapists, not in any way supporting rape.

Posted by: UCLAbodyimage

Yes, that's the way I saw it too. I can respect an opinion that rape is never something that should be satirized Onion/Steven Colbert style (ie, by adopting the persona of the outrageous person in order to show how outrageous they are.) But I don't think whoever wrote this should be penalized as promoting rape, because that obviously wasn't the intent.

Tom, yes, I see your point, but anyone who was a convicted rapist would presumably have been sentenced and have served their time, in which case one can't really go on persecuting them. And if someone *hasn't* been convicted of rape, well then putting their photo up on the internet would lead to all sorts of legal action.

I see this "prank" as on a par with Prince Harry dressing up in a Nazi outfit. Criminally dumb.

One more thing. My daughter said she didn't really remember the signs that said "90% of all Tritons think sex without consent is wrong" because she was too gobsmacked by the signs that said "95% of all Tritons think it is wrong to use alcohol to coerce your date into sex".

She's doing all she can to identify and avoid the other 5%.

Clearly UCSD as well as the rest of the world has a population (albeit a miniority) that think drug induced and/or coerced sex is okay. That is the problem, plain and simple.

Those boys in the photo made a very misguided attempt to address how absurd it is to think that rape is okay.

Saddest of all is that this incident made nary a splash on campus. It only impacted the students who read that paper and it must not be that good or have decent circulation if my daughter never saw it.

All of this happened about 6 weeks ago.

"Note to college boys who think rape is funny: it's not"

Jessica, does that apply only to college boys, or to Sarah Silverman and George Carlin too?

I'm a sophomore at UCSD and I know some of the people who write for the Guardian.
The disreguardian issue was full of satire on stuff on campus, the main headline being about a polic officer arresting one of the editors for supposedly having illegal substances in their offices [satirizing The Koala when they made headlines when administration found pot and booze in their office]

While I do not think rape is funny, this article satirizes the "9 out of 10 tritons" posters because that is such a vague research. When I first saw these posters I thought, "How can you put that in statistics? I mean any guy can say, 'No I have never raped anyone' How can someone actually make a research on that?!"

I found it a ridiculously lame statistic and I hoped to never run into the 1 out of 10 and I think the Guardian was making fun of this statistic.
While it didn't offend me personally, I wouldn't be surprised to find rape victims to be affected.

Bowleserised writes:
I see this "prank" as on a par with Prince Harry dressing up in a Nazi outfit.

Agreed--or the "gangsta" parties at white fraternities in the northeast. I think it's exactly the same thing.

Cheers,

TH

Am I the one who has to state the obvious, that those 10 percent of UCSD students are likely all men? Thus meaning that 20 percent of male UCSD students think rape is a-okay.

Is there any information on how that information was obtained? Other studies have shown that, as long as you don't call it rape (rather call it forced sex), 50 percent of men think it's no big deal, and admit that they would do it given the chance. If the questions asked of UCSD students were phrased that way, then the results may actually be an improvement.

Sorry for the “I guess the fun is over� comment. Thinking back on it, it was rude, and I should have given the real reason why I had to get off of the computer; I had to prepare lunch and clean the house (it was my turn).
Anyway last night, and this morning I thought of few ways to deal with the 10% problem.

1. Fight fire with fire. Why not run a counter joke article about the chauvinist hog (or pig) tying team. Show a picture of college girls who use a baiter (a provocative dressed member of their team) to lure out the rape team, so that the rest of chauvinist pig tying team can trap them and tie them up. Some of the members of the fake rape team might be willing to pose for the pictures for the counter article as a matter of atonement.
2. Advice sororities and other women’s college campus clubs to give a “means of denying consent� presentation to their members.
3. Start (or encourage) a letter writing campaign to college deans demanding that some sort of anti-rape awareness program be implemented at their college campuses.
4. start (or encourage) a letter writing campaign to public school boards of education requesting that anti-sexual harassment seminars be given each semester to all children above the age of 12.
5. Encourage fraternities to organize chivalry guards to patrol the dark spots of college campuses in an effort to discourage rapist.

Obviously these measures won’t completely solve the problem (and a lot of those measure are probably already in place), but they would bring that 10% number down at a relatively small expense.

PS One thing I can't get over it that the name of this site sounds a lot "fisting."

Auguste: your comment came so late after mine, I am not sure what you mean...other comments went other directions, my head spins...@;-(

You said: "Yeah, hazmatix, because that's what that paper is saying."

I can only infer that you are agreeing with me? That it is highly likely that these guys were molested in some form by women, and other females, before they were old enough to say no, and because society does not punish or police this female perpetration?

And that because of the undiscussed female perpetrated sexual abuse, and other violence directed at little boys by girls and women from ages 1 to 17 or so, men like these are highly likely they have developed cavalier, and disrespectful attitudes towards women?

A direct result of sexual violence perpetrated by women on children( boys AND girls) is a fundamental disrespect for the opposite sex, or their own.

*eyeroll*

It reminds me of this Montel Williams show( don't shoot the messenger here, but daytime TV has this type of story at leasst twenty times a week...)Scenario:
A little boy is being castigated by mother and sister for being "bad" and a "danger" to them, and their "family"( composed of: his mother, isr sister, a single teen mom, the teen moms baby--a boy, and the "bad boy" on the show)
Well the long and short is that the kid is in and out of many 'treatment centers for his "badness." Finally, according to the women in the house, he needs to go to boot camp, and when Big Brother Montel asks " I understand you hurt your mother and broke your principals arm," the kid says " I didn't do anything to them. Mom always has a way to push me into walls, and corner me, and all I ever did was push her off of me," BB Montel says " What about your principal. The kid says " It wasn't my principal!! That is more of my mothers lies to you.It was a teacher, and she was slamming me into a locker; then pushing me up into a wall. I just pushed her, hard, off of me."

In the whole deal, all we see is this little boy wanting his body space to NOT be the public turf of his mothers touches, and NOT be the public turf of his female other authority figures. And why? By inference, I suspect he has had WAY TOO MUCH female touch, and female authority gone wild.

So what is the solution for thios boy? Ship him off to bootcamp, and make sure he gets good and scared of men, but NEVER EVER DISCUSSES, or gets LISTENED to when he begins to find his voice about inappropriate female touching.Other hypothesis?
Baby number two, the next boy in line for improper touch, will be shared by momma and sissy, and he, at fourteen is just too old for momma now, but that lil' baby boy is JUST right: one happy family, as soon as the "bad [perceptive]boy is gone.

hazmatix:

Just to set some things straight here. YES, unfortunately molestation of children is not terribly uncommon in our culture. Some professional statistics indicate that about 1 in 6 men have been sexually assaulted, with the average age at their victimization being 4, and the perpetrators being BOTH male and female. A similar number of girls are sexually assaulted. Then as adults, about 1 in 4 college-age women have been sexually assaulted. However, there has never been a study that shows that survivors of sexual abuse are more likely to perpetrate violence on others, so blaming victimization of adult women on the victimization of young boys by women is totally bogus.

Now Ranter, I find this insulting:

"Advice sororities and other women’s college campus clubs to give a “means of denying consent� presentation to their members."

And I am disappointed you cannot understand that. Most women understand how to deny consent (i.e. say "no"). And if they somehow fail to say that they don't want to have sex when they don't, it is usually because other factors are in play (e.g. they are feeling intimidation, coercion, or are confused and feeling like they are perhaps obligated to "put-out" for a date or a bf or whatever). Now I'm all about educating women to help them gain confidence and make them aware of their legal rights. However, indicating that we just need to teach women how to "say no" to reduce sex crimes is bull and is pinning the responsibility on women in an inappropriate way. You know (or maybe you don't) when you are having sex with someone who really wants to be having sex with you, it ain't rocket science to figure out (gestures, noises, words, etc.) (it's hardly like most rape victims are putting on a show of being "really enthusiastic" about sex that their partners have to read through) If a guy manages to have sex with someone who did not want to have sex, he probably just did not care enough about the women's thoughts and desires to find out. Both partners should absolutely have a responsibility to make sure the other person wants to have sex, and to not have sex if the other person is not wanting it.

"Start (or encourage) a letter writing campaign to college deans demanding that some sort of anti-rape awareness program be implemented at their college campuses."

Most colleges already have such a program, although a lot of people who go to the program might not take it as seriously as they should (although many people do)

"Encourage fraternities to organize chivalry guards to patrol the dark spots of college campuses in an effort to discourage rapist."

This again, is bogus. Colleges have paid, professional security guards that monitor the grounds. Fraternities and frat/jock culture are /responsible/ for a lot of the rapes on campuses nationwide. Not to mention the idea that men and male culture (who are the primary perpetrators of violence against women) will be responsible for chivalrously protecting women is a bit patriarchal. Here's a heads up: most rape crimes on campuses don't happen in the "dark spots" around campus, they happen in the beds boyfriends and girlfriends share.

"PS One thing I can't get over it that the name of this site sounds a lot "fisting.""

Why can't you get over it? You don't think feminists have sex? (or don't have a sense of humor) Or is it more like "jokes about sex acts some women enjoy are odd/distasteful, whereas "satire" about rape is totally understandable... *eyeroll*?"

Note: I guess I actually should have said: "Here's a heads up: most rape crimes on campuses don't happen in the "dark spots" around campus, they happen in the beds boyfriends and girlfriends share and in dorm rooms with other male "friends" or acquaintences."

another note to you hazmatix:

If you care very much about that particular social problem because you yourself have some trauma from having sustained molestation as a child, I by all means encourage you to seek help. Although most sexual violence centers are run primarily by women, they usually try and recruit some male volunteers, and they are very glad to help all victims of sexual crimes.

Ranter: "2. Advice sororities and other women’s college campus clubs to give a “means of denying consent� presentation to their members."

If he would have changed "sororities and women's college campus clubs" to "fraternities and men's college campus clubs and sports teams," I would have actually believed he had learned something.

Ranter, if you are interested in feminism, why don't you check out "Men Can Stop Rape" or a similar organization. Lots of men are working hard to frame feminist issues (like rape) as "men's" and "human" issues, instead of "women's" issues.

Actually a lot of the women I talk to don't know how to tell their boyfriends "no." That might just be the case where I come from, and in the field of work that I am in, but that is what I see.

I stated clearly that most of my ideas were probably already being applied, but I really don't know (they were just thoughts).

The Chivalry Guard idea was something that I heard about being suggested to military personnel in Iraq to discourage American GIs from raping their female coworkers. The idea is to kill 2 birds with one stone; make the area safer, and give men a lesson that rape is not OK. I don't know if the idea was put to action in Iraq where the rape of American Service women is very common.

Sorry if I insulted you with that comment. That wasn't my intent.

Ranter: "Actually a lot of the women I talk to don't know how to tell their boyfriends "no."

Well that is a shame. They probably do need to be better educated about consent as well, but to
*me* what would probably be even more effective is teaching their BOYFRIENDS about consent.
A male friend of mine works
with Men Can Stop Rape and as he says, "a woman should have to say no with a karate kick."

I wasn't offended though, just commenting.

ranter, thanks for retracting the "i guess the fun is over" business. i hope you see how different that is than saying "i have to go make lunch" and what an othering and dismissive thing it was to say. it CAN BE fun to have a dialogue that's challenging to your assumptions and keeps you on your toes. less so to enter into a feminist community with a tourist perspective.

Well I got to go. I think we have killed this item has been put to death (but some good ideas came up).
Actually I have a lot fun writing here, even if I come off as jerk most of the time (I'm learning).

By the way I finished Jessica book and it was very entertaining (I will keep the rest of my thought about it to myself).

Please take care, and keep up the good work all (I hope that didn't sound condescending).

Ranter – you're the one making the 'fisting' association. I seem to remember Jessica saying that 'Feministing' was their idea of making a verb from the word 'feminist'. It's not intended to be sexual.

Dude, Your Mom Must Be So Proud & Stuff

As a general rule, I don’t condone violence of any kind. I‘d say I come down pretty firmly on the non-violent side of the fence. Hurting people is bad; don’t do it. But I was so very tempted to give myself a holiday from my usual no-violence stance so I could drive down to San Diego and bitch-slap some rational thought into these boys’ heads. Too bad violent retaliation only increases the problem. Besides, deep down I do realize that no amount of me kicking their asses is going to make them any smarter.

My only hope is that their mothers will see this photo and smack their boys upside the head for me. It is difficult for me to explain without using excessive amounts of foul language just how deeply I loathe stupid people.

http://www.educatednation.com/2007/04/26/college-boys-who-think-rape-is-funny/

Hello all! I wanted to let folks know that three of the letters from the UCSD Women's Center writing campaign were published in the Guardian. One of the emails from one of our students received this reply from the Editor:

"I'm sorry that you were offended by the "Predators Stalk Campus for
Big Win" article in the Disreguardian. We wrote the story based on a
highly publicized campaign by the Sexual Assault Resource Center
alerting students that "9 out of 10 Tritons always stop sexual
activity when their date says no." All of our staff, including myself,
found this statistic deplorable - obviously, it should be 10 out of
10. We found the insinuation that 10 percent of the campus population
would pursue sexual activity with an unwilling partner to be quite
disturbing, and the campaign to be laughably ineffective. The
Disreguardian gave us a venue to explore the issue in a satirical
manner (you're right, it's not a joke - it's satire). The article
mocked the potential perpetrators of these horrible crimes and a
flawed campaign, not victims. Again, I'm sorry you were offended, and
I appreciate your feedback."


Lame, huh? It was basically the same response that was printed in the paper.

Several of us here at the Women's Center are pasting the artile on poster boards and taking them to Take Back the Night next week. The Office of Student Life has decided to no longer advertise in the April Fools issue of the Guardian (The Disre-Guardian, as they call it). I think now it's time to write to the advertisers who fund this paper.

RANTER...I would suggest that boyfriends need to start learning to ask for the "yes", rather than waiting for the "no"...I think that's the point of the 10% thing. I read it as "90% think you have to ask for consent"...the other 10% apparently don't care if the woman consents, rely on "body language," or just assume that's o.k. if there is no physical resistence.


I think the message that "no means no" is an important one...but "Only Yes means Yes" is an even more crucial one.

I suppose you can make a joke about rape, like a commentary to the sad facts. I find it very tasteless, though. A bit like making jokes about Holocaust. You need massive fingerspitzgefühl, and I'm not sure these guys have that.

Nina Pen...yes, there are some issues with the defining of sexual abuse indeed, mainly because of its actual definition. It was once ( some twenty years ago) politically expaedient to categorize sexual offenses( and thus all other definitions of such sexual abuse) as categorically male behavior. That is problematic in and of itself, consideing that all of the research thus far focuses attention, and research resources on looking for male type behavior, not the other, equally invasive ( digital penetration, etc etc) that wome can and do perpetrate.

Sure, once it was helpful to define sexual abuse as male, advance womens causes, and so forth, but now there is indeed a regression effect, and I personally study that. In fact there has always been solid evidence of female sexual abuse of children, but it is perpetrated differently, and more subtly, with more power over the victims for a far longer period of time. Even worse, the mantra that abuse is somehow perpetrated on victims by "both" men and women was a deliberate obfuscation of the fact that womens behaviors acting alone are not studied, no funds exist to study these behaviors, and it was never in the interests of the womens movement to study this. Yet I and others study it in the field, and in the office as well. Ruth Mathgews in St. Paul was an early voice of this, and was shouted down, as well as a host of others.
I posted the following link to one interesting, and valid study of why this social gatekeeping occurs,
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume13/j13_1_2.htm

and ironically here in the US, the whole notion of women abusing is often negated by the same primordial myth about women that negated womens sexuality for so long: "women don't have kinds of sexual urges."
I merely suggest that now that we have arrived in the era of fisting, electro orgasms administered by friends and lovers, as well as a host of other lberating sexuality, it is time to address why it is that Eve Enslers portrayal of the rape of a thirteen year old was heralded as heroism, and V day was born.
But whereas I take your kind offer to work in a rape crisis center to heart, I will continue to work with those who I am hearing these stories from, knowing how rare it is indeed for women to actually analyse the sexual behaviors that their mothers and female others have directed at them as objects rather than people.Unfortunately, they often have been trained in systemic fashion to only focus on male behavior.

I feel that I can make a bigger difference working directly with them, rather than in any sense within the flawed but accepted dogmas of what passes for rape awareness.

AND I keep my eyes open for the anectdotal, such as the incident on Montel above. A picture is worth a thousand words, but yet one more young boy asking in a quiet voice that women keep their hands off of him is sadly worthless in this society--except to me and a few dilligent others.