Excuse me while I vomit.- Trigger Warning for Rape and Rape Culture.

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm five foot three and not exactly physically threatening.

Save that line for people who've never met you. you're absolutely terrifying.

[East Coast Hustle]

About 10 or so years ago, when I lived in Belltown in Seattle, there was a serial rapist preying on men, usually late at night in some of the parks in and around the downtown area. Including the park that was my go-to "insomnia's here, gonna go smoke a bowl under some trees with a killer view of downtown and Elliot bay" park (Cal Andersen, for those familiar with Seattle). Now, I'm a big dude and have been told that the default look on my face is "potentially murderous" (probably an unconscious survival tactic since I'm actually a really nice person who hates having to ever resort to physical violence in spite of my facility with it), but I came to the conclusion that someone deranged enough to be serially raping men in parks probably didn't care about that kind of shit, and very possibly was bigger and better at the art of violence than I am. I let it keep me out of the parks at night for about 2 weeks, and even outside of the parks I became even more hyper-vigilant after dark, especially in alleys or places with no other people around.

Then I got REALLY REALLY angry about it, not just that it was impacting my ability to enjoy one of my cherished rituals but that it had put a damper on the entire (20-something carefree party boy) community. So I got an unregistered piece and spent a few tense nights trying to enjoy my time in the park but mostly waiting to have to shoot someone.

I never encountered the guy, and unless it happened after I moved away nobody was ever caught for the crimes, they just stopped eventually.

But the way I felt for those few weeks in a very specific circumstance? I can't fucking IMAGINE having to have that be my default mode through life.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm five foot three and not exactly physically threatening.

Save that line for people who've never met you. you're absolutely terrifying.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

About 10 or so years ago, when I lived in Belltown in Seattle, there was a serial rapist preying on men, usually late at night in some of the parks in and around the downtown area. Including the park that was my go-to "insomnia's here, gonna go smoke a bowl under some trees with a killer view of downtown and Elliot bay" park (Cal Andersen, for those familiar with Seattle). Now, I'm a big dude and have been told that the default look on my face is "potentially murderous" (probably an unconscious survival tactic since I'm actually a really nice person who hates having to ever resort to physical violence in spite of my facility with it), but I came to the conclusion that someone deranged enough to be serially raping men in parks probably didn't care about that kind of shit, and very possibly was bigger and better at the art of violence than I am. I let it keep me out of the parks at night for about 2 weeks, and even outside of the parks I became even more hyper-vigilant after dark, especially in alleys or places with no other people around.

Then I got REALLY REALLY angry about it, not just that it was impacting my ability to enjoy one of my cherished rituals but that it had put a damper on the entire (20-something carefree party boy) community. So I got an unregistered piece and spent a few tense nights trying to enjoy my time in the park but mostly waiting to have to shoot someone.

I never encountered the guy, and unless it happened after I moved away nobody was ever caught for the crimes, they just stopped eventually.

But the way I felt for those few weeks in a very specific circumstance? I can't fucking IMAGINE having to have that be my default mode through life.

It totally sucks.

Which is why when someone like PUA-boy here says something like "I try to get past her boundaries and show her that she can trust me, and if she can't or won't trust, it's because she has issues, so I move on" it pisses me off. That's PUA code for "If she turns out to have strong boundaries and isn't an easy mark I can quickly coerce into sex, I drop it and look for someone more vulnerable/damaged". Trust is something that is built over time; you can't just "show someone that their idea is wrong" with regards to allowing themselves to be vulnerable to a stranger.

Fucking coercive rapey bullshit, is what it is. Next time some guy tries to pull that shit on me, instead of laughing at him and telling him to fuck off I swear to god I'm going to shank him.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh and I'm just WAITING for grabby-hands to come back around. Of course, I guess I would have to go to the bar to encounter him and I haven't gone for weeks, but if I do his ass is getting a whoopin. I have a grudge.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I love the SHIT out of that argumentative old fuck! GODDAMN HIS ASS. 

Your dad is Roger?

I am not argumentative.  I am a Holy Man^TM which means that my view of reality is skewed to the point that even when you're right (ie, you agree with me), it LOOKS like you're wrong (we argue).  This isn't MY doing.

Anyway, on with whatever.

Blackfoot, stop fucking arguing for a minute and listen.  Just listen, and try to understand what I'm saying, instead of listening to formulate a response.

Ok, let's say you're this soldier, right?  And you get sent to these stupid fucking wars overseas, and you see (and maybe do) all manner of fucked up shit.  But that's okay, because even though it's awful and terrible, it's not "horror", because - being a soldier - it's all within your frame of reference. 

And then one day, let's just assume there's an accident or something, a wound maybe, and you can't be a soldier anymore.  You are booted out into the world naked (you may have clothes, but you don't have a uniform, so you may as well be bare-ass naked).  Suddenly, all that awful shit that you saw IS horror, because you no longer have a frame of reference to place it in.  Or worse, you DO, but you no longer have a frame of reference for the regular civilian world.

So, of course, the first thing you do is go looking for a uniform, so that you can at least once again have some method by which to judge or evaluate the world around you.  So you go through a pile of different belief systems, like an adolescent's "phases" only on 8X fast forward, looking for the one you can let yourself submerge into.

Are you following me so far?  If so, I'll continue.

[Cain]

Oh I forgot something I used to do because I don't have them anymore, and I'd really like to find them again, but fashion is a fickle creature.

I used to wear those chopstick style things to put my hair up, and I only actually need one to keep my hair in place, so the other one was there as a potential weapon, my favourite ones were wicked sharp at the tips, and would often carry one in my hand when walking alone.

OK now I want to hear from the guys about what they do to prevent potential sexual assault and street harassment.

Nothing at all. 

I have, however, taught a class on self-defense specifically tailored towards women.  Or, I tried to, while the main instructor (I was the assistant) undermined me by teaching "Jumping Around in Gym Clothes While Pretending to Learn Self-Defence".

[Juana]

Hi Cain.

I'm five foot three and not exactly physically threatening.

Save that line for people who've never met you. you're absolutely terrifying.

Formidable, certainly.

[Cain]

Hi.

That class really annoyed me, incidentally.  It was specifically meant to deal with sexual assault, and so I spent hours researching rape, breaking down into distinct categories and types, collecting the statistics to help the students understand the risks and probabilities involved and to cover the whole subject from a more preventative perspective (if you're left to resorting to violence, then I consider that a bad place to start from, especially given on average a female is smaller, lighter and less aggressive than a male attacker.  Ideally, you want to concentrate on all the other things which can help someone avoid such a situation first, then deal with the combat stuff).

So the instructor I was teaching with decided to be all "herp derp put your keys between your fingers and punch your attacker" with the thing.  Nothing about prevention.  No viable combat training, aside from basic punching or kicking, which, IMO, does not cut the mustard when you're dealing with someone looking to rape you.  Especially since that rape can possibly be followed up by murder.  Because of the physical differences between men and women, and the seriousness of the consequences, I personally advocated teaching the most dangerous techniques, designed to maim or kill an attacker.  I was told these were "too dangerous", which I felt was kinda missing the point.  We don't want to hurt the poor violent rapist badly enough to actually convince him to stop his assault?

That class did a gross disservice to everyone who attended, because it not only wasted their time and the school's money, it gave them a false sense of security where none existed.  The only outcomes from using something from that class on a potential rapist would be a) injuring yourself, or b) pissing off the rapist enough to give you a brutal beating along with the sexual assault.  Probably both.

I did lodge a formal complaint with the school that put on the class, but four years after I left, he was still teaching it there.

[Freeky]

Sounds like that Guy was an idiot.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Hi.

That class really annoyed me, incidentally.  It was specifically meant to deal with sexual assault, and so I spent hours researching rape, breaking down into distinct categories and types, collecting the statistics to help the students understand the risks and probabilities involved and to cover the whole subject from a more preventative perspective (if you're left to resorting to violence, then I consider that a bad place to start from, especially given on average a female is smaller, lighter and less aggressive than a male attacker.  Ideally, you want to concentrate on all the other things which can help someone avoid such a situation first, then deal with the combat stuff).

So the instructor I was teaching with decided to be all "herp derp put your keys between your fingers and punch your attacker" with the thing.  Nothing about prevention.  No viable combat training, aside from basic punching or kicking, which, IMO, does not cut the mustard when you're dealing with someone looking to rape you.  Especially since that rape can possibly be followed up by murder.  Because of the physical differences between men and women, and the seriousness of the consequences, I personally advocated teaching the most dangerous techniques, designed to maim or kill an attacker.  I was told these were "too dangerous", which I felt was kinda missing the point.  We don't want to hurt the poor violent rapist badly enough to actually convince him to stop his assault?

That class did a gross disservice to everyone who attended, because it not only wasted their time and the school's money, it gave them a false sense of security where none existed.  The only outcomes from using something from that class on a potential rapist would be a) injuring yourself, or b) pissing off the rapist enough to give you a brutal beating along with the sexual assault.  Probably both.

I did lodge a formal complaint with the school that put on the class, but four years after I left, he was still teaching it there.

These are the idiots who have been doing the TV talk show circuit for years. Totally useless, I agree.

I wonder, with all the women in the military these days, how much combat training they're actually getting and if rape stats are going down any since they've been coming home? Or are they less likely to be attacked in the first place because of the way they carry themselves? My dad was a vet and he told me that you can pull a person's upper lip straight up and rip their face off, or drive bone into their brain by giving them a hard uppercut to the nose. This might take more physical strength than most women have. Still, hand-to-hand combat training is a fantastic idea.

My favorite foiled rape story is the lady who pretended to be into it, grabbed her attacker's dick and sack, and twisted them in opposite directions. She said she "wrung it out like a washrag". He punched her a couple of times but she didn't let go. She walked him down the stairs like this (it took awhile, he fainted a time or two) and made him call the police on himself. This didn't take a great deal of upper body strength - the lady was elderly. 

[Cain]

Unfortunately, I suspect it's not having much of an effect, given how much rape is going on in the US military

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/09/rape-us-military

Rape within the US military has become so widespread that it is estimated that a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be attacked by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. So great is the issue that a group of veterans are suing the Pentagon to force reform. The lawsuit, which includes three men and 25 women (the suit initially involved 17 plaintiffs but grew to 28) who claim to have been subjected to sexual assaults while serving in the armed forces, blames former defence secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates for a culture of punishment against the women and men who report sex crimes and a failure to prosecute the offenders.

Last year 3,158 sexual crimes were reported within the US military. Of those cases, only 529 reached a court room, and only 104 convictions were made, according to a 2010 report from SAPRO (sexual assault prevention and response office, a division of the department of defence). But these figures are only a fraction of the reality. Sexual assaults are notoriously under-reported. The same report estimated that there were a further 19,000 unreported cases of sexual assault last year. The department of veterans affairs, meanwhile, released an independent study estimating that one in three women had experience of military sexual trauma while on active service. That is double the rate for civilians, which is one in six, according to the US department of justice.

This is (one of the reason's) why I think the combat aspect of self-defence is overrated.  You have to focus on the culture and context in which rape occurs.  It doesn't really matter if you know how to put a guy down if, when you do so, you're going to be thrown into a military prison for "assaulting/murdering a superior officer".  This is why I tend to place education, awareness and so on as more important, because there will be always be situations where standing up for yourself and fighting back will be considered illegal, regardless of how in the right you may actually be.

And there is little comfort in avoiding a rape, only to go to prison and be subject to a system where rape is "frequent and severe".

[Juana]

Yeah, you need to counter rape culture just as much as women/females need to be taught how to defend themselves. Otherwise you're not really making a dent in the situation.


I almost forgot this tumblr, which tells you even more than we have about male privilege, if you're interested: http://aboutmaleprivilege.tumblr.com/

[Lenin McCarthy]

And if you need to have it condensed into two minutes of music, try this.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Unfortunately, I suspect it's not having much of an effect, given how much rape is going on in the US military

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/09/rape-us-military

Rape within the US military has become so widespread that it is estimated that a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be attacked by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. So great is the issue that a group of veterans are suing the Pentagon to force reform. The lawsuit, which includes three men and 25 women (the suit initially involved 17 plaintiffs but grew to 28) who claim to have been subjected to sexual assaults while serving in the armed forces, blames former defence secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates for a culture of punishment against the women and men who report sex crimes and a failure to prosecute the offenders.

Last year 3,158 sexual crimes were reported within the US military. Of those cases, only 529 reached a court room, and only 104 convictions were made, according to a 2010 report from SAPRO (sexual assault prevention and response office, a division of the department of defence). But these figures are only a fraction of the reality. Sexual assaults are notoriously under-reported. The same report estimated that there were a further 19,000 unreported cases of sexual assault last year. The department of veterans affairs, meanwhile, released an independent study estimating that one in three women had experience of military sexual trauma while on active service. That is double the rate for civilians, which is one in six, according to the US department of justice.

Yes, there's a lot of rape within the military. Besides the shitty prosecution rates, the women know that these guys have the same or better training and a lot more strength, as a rule. I was thinking more of some civilian trying to attack a woman with decent combat training...but agree, it's a last-ditch reseouce and a lot better if it never comes to that in the first place.

This is (one of the reason's) why I think the combat aspect of self-defence is overrated.  You have to focus on the culture and context in which rape occurs.  It doesn't really matter if you know how to put a guy down if, when you do so, you're going to be thrown into a military prison for "assaulting/murdering a superior officer".  This is why I tend to place education, awareness and so on as more important, because there will be always be situations where standing up for yourself and fighting back will be considered illegal, regardless of how in the right you may actually be.

And there is little comfort in avoiding a rape, only to go to prison and be subject to a system where rape is "frequent and severe".

Of course. USA, tuff on crime, rah, rah.  Male rape is just as common. I suspect the default for most guys in prison is the same as for a woman.