Posts by Nat D

  • Up Front: Lighting the Dark, in reply to Grant McDougall,

    Yeah, because, you know, the 3 people in his apartment killed with machetes and stabbed are totes different, bro.

    Let me put his another way. We talk about gun control every time a shooting happens in the 'States. We never, ever talk about the misogyny that underpins the deaths of thousands of women. The misogyny that makes the single biggest danger to women, men. Not heart attacks or guns or cancer. Men.

    So, hows about this one time when we ARE talking about it, you stop derailing it. OK?

    Auckland • Since Oct 2013 • 4 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Jolisa,

    You're welcome! I'm totally thankful that Megan and Danielle and heaps of others posted such eloquent replies earlier.

    Auckland • Since Oct 2013 • 4 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    That's a cop-out. The conversations are a lot easier to have than you think and that's coming from someone who has PTSD. And, guess what, I have them all the time, because this is important.

    Aside from the obvious problems with expecting us to teach others, rather than on them to educate themselves using the myriad 101s, I don't really think 'teach people not to rape' can be considered 'jargon', unless you're saying that the term 'rape' is jargon. The missing part was the fundamental understanding of what 'rape' is, and therefore what teaching people not to do it means.

    If rape is jargon now, I'm fucking terrified.

    Auckland • Since Oct 2013 • 4 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Rape and unreason,

    The most ridiculous thing about most of the argument in this thread is that BOTH the 'all men being held in suspicion' thing, AND the 'women being told they are responsible for their own safety and being told they can prevent rape by wearing the right clothes, or walking home the right way, or taking whatever other inane precaution someone comes up with' thing are RESULTS of rape culture. Now, one of them quite obviously has a greater impact (If you're arguing that being told you should entirely change how you live your life, and if you don't, it's your fault if something happens is not a greater impact, you're an idiot). However, both are outcomes of the SAME DAMN THING.

    Rape culture hurts both WOMEN and MEN.

    Also, let's go a bit easy on the gendered terms, because there are certainly female rapists, and trans* communities are often heavily impacted also.

    The point still stands that we need to teach not to rape, but I think misconceptions arise, because that's shorthand amongst people who talk about this regularly for a bunch of related concepts.

    I think we forget that many people don't regularly have those conversations. This means they don't have the benefit of our immediate understanding of the implications of that statement.

    By saying 'we need to teach not to rape' (and I mean both men AND women), we mean, as has been alluded to earlier, that we need to teach our children better concepts about sex and consent. We need to teach them to be comfortable having the discussions and the check-ins that many people feel squicky about. We need to make sure that they are crystal clear that being drunk or asleep is not consent. Being indifferent is not consent. And we need to make damn sure they know that consent is not a forever-pass to someone's body. We need to make sure that the ridiculous concept that rape is something that a stranger does to you is eradicated.

    This shit should be drummed into children by parents, in the media, and in schools.

    This isn't about making men out to be the bogeyman, because hell, rape culture has already done that, while it was making us be scared, and be blamed for something we couldn't stop.

    This is about making it better and safer for everyone.

    Auckland • Since Oct 2013 • 4 posts Report Reply