As Dennis Prager has said, our universities are the least free place in America. And one of the best (or worst) examples of the transformation of places of learning into seminaries of Leftism is in its policing of male sexuality.
Anyone who follows the contemporary media closely is doubtless familiar with the suddenly ubiquitous phrase “rape culture.” In the context of higher education, the phrase implies two interlocking beliefs. First: despite crime statistics showing sexual assault (as well as all violent crimes) to be very uncommon on campus, colleges and universities are, in fact, hotbeds of rape (but not, it appears, of all other violent crimes). Second: despite the fact that most college faculties and nearly all administrations are extraordinarily sympathetic to the activists’ position on gender issues, the campus culture over which these figures preside nonetheless–somehow–actually encourages the prevalence of rape at college.
That little, if any, evidence exists to sustain either of these beliefs has not deterred the “rape culture” believers; if anything, the lack of evidence for their claims appears to have emboldened them. Nor have they been deterred by the revelation of high-profile false rape claims on campus (ranging from the Duke lacrosse case to the Caleb Warner affair at North Dakota); if anything, the increasing build-up of sympathy for clearly railroaded males has intensified the rage of those who discern a “rape culture” on campus. […]
[T]he “rape culture” approach allows activists to shift the narrative away from uncomfortable questions about due process and false accusations against innocent male students, and toward a cultural critique in which the facts of specific cases can be deemed irrelevant. Selena Roberts pioneered the tactic at Duke–when the case against the lacrosse players imploded, she (falsely) claimed that her guilt-presuming columns were merely designed to critique a flawed “campus culture.” Or, as Amanda Childress implied in her oft-criticized remarks, whatever value might exist in following specified procedures in sexual assault cases, universities should focus their efforts on tackling broader cultural mores.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the “rape culture” approach provides a weapon to advance a particular type of gender-based agenda (curricular and administrative priorities need to be revamped to recognize that women are victims) in a campus environment in which race/class/gender advocates already dominate. There always will be a stray, anonymous misogynistic comment on a message board, or by a drunken student at a spring-break party, from which advocates can then generalize to claim that a crisis exists on campus–without ever defining precisely what a “rape culture” is, or how the steps they recommend could possibly eradicate it. And since there isn’t a recent example–from Duke to Dartmouth to any of the current Title IX claims–in which those who have cried wolf on campus have experienced any repercussions for their actions, there is no drawback in advancing inflammatory claims, no matter how unlikely.
While Miriam Weeks (aka Bella Knox), the Duke freshman who is getting her 15 minutes of fame for acting in porn, California is poised to legally redefine consensuel sex on campus as rape.
This is not as confusing or contradictory as it appears. The Female Supremacists are Leftists and the “rape culture” meme is no more valid as the “gun culture” one. Actual rapists will not be deterred by demonstrations, college kangaroo courts, speech codes, etc; any more than criminals are deterred by the Leftist drive to strip citizens of the right of self-defense.
This has never been about the cultural issue de jour … rape, guns or the Koch Brothers. It is about raw power.
It is a very scary time to be a parent of a son going off to college. As I mentioned on another site, the Left is doing more than its share to validate stodgy, repressive, Christianist admonitions to abstain from sexual relations until one is married. Not that that is a perfect solution, inasmuch as specious allegations without evidence are enough to destroy a young man’s life and career. This is reminiscent of the early 1980s when allegations of sexual abuse of children were rampant in domestic relations cases. Such allegations became so ubiquitous that a new term was coined: “SAID” for “Sexual Abuse In Divorce.” The allegations were raised as a weapon in domestic litigation, and I fear the same thing is happening on campus in order to advance females by getting rid of male competition.
Getting rid of male competition on college campuses, it can begin to appear, Shermlaw, means getting rid of all the great books of the western canon (with apologies to Miss Austen, and even she gets a short shrift from these harpies), precisely since they’re nearly all creations of men. That act — getting rid of these challenging beasts — at least has the simplicity of ridding the ignorance of the ignorant of all the troubles of acquiring an education though contact with the difficult or recurrently problematic in life. Whereupon, incoherence can be the highest VALUE. We must, after all, have VALUE with our CULTURE. (And pottery. And dance.) Wheeee! College must be a breeze.
What I don’t get Jeff is why you are one of the few of what I consider main bloggers to actually get what the left is about?
Well, the Lesbocommunist Brainwash “Studies” departments need something to justify their existence……
I am beginning to think that just as “loser pays” would be a good tort reform, these leftist “womyn” who lie in order to ruin a man’s life deserve their own special punishment. Saddam Hussein may have had one good idea after all.
JohnPaulAdams, the rest consider him unhelpful for having noticed the Unicorn Prince’s New Clothes (and I don’t mean mom jeans) before they did.
The patriarchy works in mysterious ways. In the old days, it tricked women into policing other women’s sexuality. Now it’s tricked the sisterhood into policing thte sexuality of men –no doubt as part of a diabolical scheme to prove that it no longer exists.
Heh, and where better to discover a foundation for that non-masculine male sexuality than in the works of that notorious groundbreaking feminist thinker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
Well one of the problems the harpies will face is that reality is a bitch. And Reality will come and smack these harpies upside the face soon enough and then they will be looking around for someone to make reality get back in the box and no one will answer the call because all the men will have gone away. Sorry Jeff for the stream of consciousness…massive blinding headache.
Darleen does a pretty good job of calling out the left for what it is also.
Thankfully, my last child to go off to college plans to major in math and physics. Not too many harpies in those disciplines. I’ll wager, nary a one.
Ernst Schreiber says March 20, 2014 at 9:12 am Darleen does a pretty good job of calling out the left for what it is also –
Obviously attention to detail is not one of my strongpoints this morning…heh. Darleen forgive me for not calling you out by name. I have been following Jeff for many many years and just assumed instead of checking the byline.
Leigh, mine is majoring in math and engineering, as well. I worry however, that the dearth of females in those fields will lead to overreaction on the part of college administrators to keep those that are there happy.
Thankfully, my last child to go off to college plans to major in math and physics. Not too many harpies in those disciplines. I’ll wager, nary a one.
That won’t help when all the young ladies are required to take a mandatory Brainwash Studies course, as campuses are increasingly demanding. :-(
no means no except if you’re a weak-ass bitch like obama when the vladimir putin starts raping lil countries
no also means no when someone says fuck those premiums I don’t want your shitty obamacares you disgusting marxist fuckhole
no also means no when the stuff they want to give you has too many carbohydrate grams
these are helpful guideline for navigating the rape culture
If I had a college-age son, I’d strongly encourage him instead to consider trade/technical school or an internship somewhere instead.
I mean, have you seen what a halfway-decent electrician, plumber, welder or auto mechanic makes these days? Not to mention having a job that’s difficult to offshore…
My suspicion is that “Rape culture” like “misogyny studies” is about seizing control of the content of entertainment meaning, music, movies, tv shows, and video games. First they’ll ask for and probably get the power to ban overt things. This will be through an unofficial channel like a professional or industry organization that blocks distribution of media by assigning it a rating that will discourage retailers ordering it. The “things” banned will start off extreme and obvious. They will proceed to to more and more marginal cases, to implied cases, until at last you are sifting media for crypto “misogyny” or “rape culture” where even a peanut butter sandwich is declared rape culture because it has “rapey eyes” like a cartoon college sports mascot.
We have people trying to control the pop culture on the grounds that it somehow shapes reality instead of the other way around. They think once they have control of it they will force everyone into a false sense of solidarity and destroy their ability to coherently resist messaging. Want every TV show to be like the West Wing or Law and order? So do they.
It’s a free speech issue really.
Shermlaw, one of the advantages of living in Greater Flyoverlandia is that we are reflexively protective of tradition.
And yet, these are the same people who recoiled in horror from the days of the Hays Code.
Sounds plausible paleomerus. In a dog that didn’t bark sense, it’s nearly certain rape culture wasn’t derived to make people stop and wonder where the hell the loopy concept of culture came from in the first place, since culture is so important, examining its own origin is right off the table.
OT off radio blurb:
Says Clown-IWon-Disaster to Vlad the Ass-Impaler: “Might doesn’t make right”. As if.
Hey, if you don’t want preachy TV shows that call you a bigot or idiot every episode, then you must be pro rape and looking to spread rape culture.
eC, I would, except the darned kid had a stratospheric ACT math score and is getting most of his college paid for.
Same here, Sherm.
Fortunately the STEM disciplines are slightly more sheltered from the “[Whatever]-Studies” shitstorm than the rest of academia.
“getting rid of all the great books of the western canon”
****Well I got some education.
I go down to the libarary every night.
And I’m looking for somebody with a dream like mine,
We could share a few pages ’round the fire so bright.
Yeah!
Somebody has to do what’s right.****
Fortunately the STEM disciplines are slightly more sheltered from the “[Whatever]-Studies” shitstorm than the rest of academia.
Which is probably connected to the reason the first episode of that new Cosmos2.0 show spent so much of its valuable airtime clumsily dealing with Giordano Bruno.
It’s an inconvenient fact that the male is superior to the female when it comes to MATH!
College youth are being victimized by Victim Culture’s rape of sensibility, if you ask me.
It’s a convenient one when it comes to relocating our ally, the spider.
Has Vegas been logging odds on the over-under in this sexgame dealio?
Unfortunately, you’re declared STEM major can’t spend all of his time in-department. I suppose you could argue that nobody remembers the last time a STEM-major was seen at a frat party, but that just seems to Revenge of the Nerds to me.
I allowed that Bruno business to be inflicted on me for a few minutes and then changed the channel.
But I’ve been catching stray episodes of a show called “NASA’s Secret Files” OSLT, and the discussions of solar activity are delightfully subversive of the ManBearPig AGW claims.
The show does lard up the drama about the strange things it features — right before presenting the perfectly logical explanations that have been found for each of them. Lays on the ridicule of those who “want to believe” with an airbrush rather than a trowel (probably because at least one or two of them are former astronauts), but is more effective that way.
I did say “slightly more sheltered…”
“Unfortunately, your declared STEM major can’t spend all of his time in-department. ”
No but he’ll quickly pick up on the departments utter disdain for the “not really classes” orientation courses. And he’ll even be taught to feel it for the conceptual science courses he isn’t allowed to pad his science core with.
Gallileo spent his latter years under house arrest in a church owned mansion and the church sent doctors to him and found him clients to do work for, and paid him a stipend. After all the pope he offended by passing the church off as “Simplicio” was his friend and was keeping him out of far more serious “pissed off stirred up lynch mob” trouble such as found Torrichelli. . Astronomers like to show Gallileo being pushed into a hard backed chair in a dungeon being ordered to recant just the same.
And what’s the department’s attitude towards keggers?
It seems like the fems prefer to go with a strict zone defense, whereas the men are more comfortable going man-on-bossy, not to say man-on-bitch.
OT: There is one less registered Democrat in Topeka today.
The church was not really dedicated to the geocentric model at that point either. Lots of open debate was ongoing at the time. But passing the church’s position off as the pythagorean/ptolmeic idiot in a rudely written dialogue quite possibly published with church funding was much more the issue. He got in trouble for tugging on Superman’s cape in public, not disagreeing with Superman.
The church used the a mild form of the very sort of “punish your detractors” power the current Anthopogenic Climate Change people obviously covet, to shut Gallileo up and they made him quite comfortable. They looked after his business interests and paid many of his debts. He went blind and they continued to care for him.
“And what’s the department’s attitude towards keggers?”
Everybody I met was a ‘two beers and a burger and let’s go’ type. The Taproom was not a place friendly towards public drunkards. That was more what Nephew’s was about.
I think people were more into mild forms of smuggled meth (pharmacia delmexico) than getting blotto.
Well too, we don’t hear a heap of scientific grousing about Copernicus’s preservation of Ptolemy’s epicyclic geometrical proofs. He’s such great guy for putting ol’ Sol in the center we can just overlook any errors he might be clinging to. Almost like it’s all about the brand, and truth take the hindmost.
guinspen, single women keep cats to deal with your ally the spider.
Me, I kill or relocate my own spiders. #Foiled
OT: There is one less registered Democrat in Topeka today.
Since when did being dead matter to being a registered and voting Democrat ?
I believe the correct term is “mortality challenged”.
Kansas requires voter ID. A federal judge upheld it. Heeheehee.
In fact, that may be what finally got to Fred.
Don’chya love the way the Left mocks Chesteron’s defense of tradition (“the democracy of the dead”) while routinely and assiduously practicing it?
my favorite part of rape culture is probably the fondu parties and after that my next favorite part is seeing what people wear to the Oscars and after that my next favorite part is going to Disneyland
my least favorite part is all the gosh darn rapin’
“Rape culture” is just another form of a Leftist tactic that Eric Raymond dubbed Kafkatrapping
One very notable pathology is a form of argument that, reduced to essence, runs like this: “Your refusal to acknowledge that you are guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…} confirms that you are guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…}.”
If you defended the Duke LAX players against the charge of rape, then you contributed to the rape culture. If you question the Scientific Consensus on GoreBull Warning, you’re contributing to the rape of Gaia. If you disagree with Obama’s policies, why you’re pretty much guilty of lynching right there.
Ironically, the way a lot of lynchings played out was that a young white woman got caught getting busy with a black man, and rather than endure the charge of being a “n*****r lover”, she went along with the idea that it was rape. Then if someone tried to offer any defense of the accused, that was just proof that the defender was a NL too (and hey we have rope to spare, don’t we?) This tended to cause lots of false charges and little defense, which the astute reader might recognize as a “lynching culture” of sorts.
The left, of course is incapable of appreciating this irony.
“rape culture” – like calling the womens bitches and hoes?
I can’t remember the name of the liberal arts college that first imposed such a ridiculous code of conduct way back in the early 90s (e.g.May I put my hand on your knee…? may I unbotton your shirt…? may I fondle your breast…? may I…? may I…? may I…? I’m going to spooge in your face now, is that okay? …. You didn’t O!?! Crap! Does this mean I’m going to jail?)
but anyhoo, that’s what California wants to enact into law?
Seems like sdferr’s right about Spengler being right about Joseph Bottum being right that Puritanism is alive and well.
I suspect that the phenomenon would have been perfectly intelligible to Spinoza himself, Ernst: you may think you’ve eliminated your need of religion, silly human, but do think again, for it will be ever thus with you.
rehrunh