Category Archives: Men’s Movement

IT’S SHIT LIKE THIS, FEMINISTS – This is how deep the rot goes – #killallmen

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A blogger calling herself stavvers at Another Angry Woman has an interesting post up. It is a real ball of sociopathic self-justification and gendercide fantasy. She starts out:

“Well, well, well. It seems the latest thing feminism is fighting about is the phrase “kill all men”.

Because apparently there is some debate to be had on whether or not this is problematic formulation. And this article just goes on and keeps getting worse, staring out with the usual bogus disclaimers, “This is all just a completely harmless hypothetical that reveals nothing about our entrenched bigotry…” before launching into denialism and self-justification.

“So, before I launch into this defence, let me point out that nobody is actually planning to kill all men. Not even some men. It’s just a phrase, an expression of rage, a rejection of a system which is riddled with violence.”

Well then it’s a completely ignorant expression of rage, since men are overwhelmingly the victims of deadly violence, usually at the hands of men – this is usually the only time these killings are punished and recorded as crimes –and often at the behest of women. If it’s intended as a rejection of violence, one has to wonder why it is directed at the primary victims of that violence.

One has to wonder at this blind spot and what might be causing it. One does not have to wonder for long; it will become very clear.

“Kill all men” is a shorthand war cry, much the same as “ACAB” or “tremble hetero swine” or “die cis scum”. It represents a structural critique, presented in a provocative fashion.

The difference being, and the reason this is dishonest, is that women are hardly the relatively powerless minority that gay or trans people are, so there is no real equivalence between these battle cries. Women are the majority of voters, have complete control over child rearing and enculturation in society and control the majority of disposable income.

Exhibit A: Manipulation (Appeal to pity)

“Patriarchy harms men, it’s true, but it oppresses the fuck out of women, and there are few, if any men who are not complicit in this oppression. Most men are not rapists or abusers, but many are complicit in perpetuating this violence by spreading rape apologist myths, by failing to stand against violence against women and girls, and by simply not nailing their colours to the mast and acting as allies.”

Let’s look at this a piece at a time:

Patriarchy hurts men too. Such a deep insight. Patriarchy oppresses women with food and shelter and protection and modern medical care, but it KILLS men to make that all happen.

Now we get the Pure Vessel thing: “if any men who are not complicit in this oppression.” Apparently no women are complicit in any of this, not even women who kill or rape other women, or who send men off to die in war.

Rape apology? Oh we know about rape apology. How’s this for some rape apology – “B-b-b-but it’s not real rape because patriarchy and rape is a crime of gendered oppression, and besides it’s not systemic, just him individually and it’s always really, really rare and anyway it’s not as bad when it happens to a boy as it is when it happens to a girl and he’s the real rapist here anyway, he forced her to do all this – the fact that he was an infant doesn’t mean he doesn’t have male privilege. Oh, and he got lucky so he should be grateful.” You can every one of those points in feminsts spaces when male rape victims are mentioned (with some shining exceptions).

And the appeal to White Knights – “by failing to stand against violence against women and girls,” – apparently stavvers is unaware of the degree and scope of violence that men will visit on other men in the defense of women and girls. There are plenty of examples of this from recent news articles in her own country, but we have our share of this mentality here too– this is how these people have acted in the past when a man offended the sacred person of a white woman – or even was simply accused.

And finally, “and by simply not nailing their colours to the mast and acting as allies.” Apparently for stavvers the alliance is all one way, women owe men nothing in return in loyalty as allies, men exist for and their value depends protecting women and nailing their colors to women’s flagpole. This the form of objectification Martha Nussbaum calls “Instrumentality”.

She goes deeper into this:

Exhibit B: Denialism (Lying)

“And this is because misogynists completely fail to understand how power works. They miss the fact that in this society, violence against women and girls is rife,…”

Well for one thing, all misogynists grow up under the control, nurture and guidance of mothers, so they almost certainly know exactly power, absolute power over food and shelter and punishment, the power of life and death, works.

And for another, the scale of violence in stavvers’ society is probably the same as in mine – several times greater than against men and boys. That probably is not apparent to stavvers because those deaths are invisible to her, probably because they are of no importance to her. They simply don’t count. This the form of objectification Martha Nussbaum calls “Violability”. This lack of empathy is sociopathic.

Exhibit C: Gaslighting

“I suppose it is hardly surprising that utterances of killing all men draw such ire, even from feminists. Under patriarchy, violence is the domain of men.”

So apparently India is not patriarchal at all, and not just India. Apparently neither is China.

“Even from feminists”? The mind vomits. Is this how a feminist refers to feminists who happen to have some human decency?

“There is no serious threat of the women rising up and actually killing all men, all the while the hum of background noise of another women raped, murdered or beaten by a man. That this culture of violence is gendered, and the system is set up in favour of keeping things that way.”

Then she really doubles down on the sociopathy:

“Part of the power of SCUM is the effect it has on men. At my reading group, the men present were allies, and I remember vividly one saying “I don’t think she went far enough at the end, letting some of the men live and act as the Men’s Auxilliary”. All of the other men nodded along. They got that this idea is just fantasy, just a satire.

On the other hand, it’s pretty difficult to mention SCUM (or indeed just cry “kill all men”) without the misogynists crawling in, crying misandry.”

So she sees value in a gendercide fantasy because its sociopathic bigotry offends men, and then she passive-aggressively ties it up with a swipe about “crying misandry”. There’s probably a clinical name for this kind of behavior.

“So no, we’re not actually advocating killing all men, but what we need is for men to understand why we might. A secondary function of this powerful little phrase is to seek out allies. Some men simply cannot fathom that we might be this furious.”

Oh the irony, this coming from someone who cannot fathom why men might be furious, and who thinks she can dismiss it with her ….

“And of course, all men are not deserving of death. In fact, most of them aren’t. I can think of a fair few I do wish painful, violent death on, although this remains but a fantasy. Patriarchy would destroy me were I to ever touch a hair on their head. Patriarchy already tries to punish me for merely expressing these thoughts, because they are unbecoming of a woman.

And of course, all men are not deserving of death. In fact, most of them aren’t.”

Oh how very generously lenient of her.

Patriarchy would destroy her…? This is denialism taken to the point of delusion. Patriarchy protects women like her and finds all kinds of excuses to dismiss her violence. The Battered Woman syndrome scam comes to mind, but more systemically the female sentencing discount is well-documented for almost any crime of violence a woman can commit, if it even gets labeled a crime of violence at all.

And when any of us finds any of this troubling, ha ha, it’s all a joke, are we really so stupid as to take any of this seriously? Are we really so crass as call it what it is and try to rip the gaslighting veil away? Besides, where do we get off privileging our own preceptions, so tainted by male privilege, over her reassurances? This is the form of objectification Martha Nussbaum calls “Denial of subjectivity”.

The Sociopathic Subtext

This is the sociopathic subtext to this attempt to explain all this away – that this is no big deal, that men are supposed to be men and just shrug this off. And “men being men” means men being tough and just sucking it up – an appeal to machismo. And men are just so big and strong, so all powerful, that a woman could never, ever harm a man, and he’s just a pussy if he has the temerity to complain. I thought feminism called machismo “toxic masculinity”, I thought feminism opposed all that.

The sociopathic subtext to just trying to pass this off as some kind of harmless joke and not the reflection of deeply entrenched attitudes with real-word consequences is that men just don’t matter enough for any of this to matter. It’s perfectly alright to treat men as violable and as instruments of women’s welfare and to dismiss men’s own perceptions of thier situation, because hey, they’re just men. Objectification is the center of sociopathy and the lack of empathy we see in stavvers’ post.

 Solidarity with sociopathy

So this is the quality of the thinking and the depth of the pathology at work in this article. I have seen a lot of pushback in feminist spaces on this article, but tellingly not one person goes the distance and just says “She’s not a feminist”. Simple as that.That’s all it would take to prove that feminists really don’t tolerate this kind of bigotry in their movement. They just have to denounce it as anti-feminist. That’s all. Then again maybe that silence is consent.

And they wonder why we distrust them and their motives and their explanations.

MALE DISPOSABILITY – Erasing male rape victims, Part II – Tamen evaluates a British and a Norwegian study on rape victims and finds invalidating methodological errors

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Typhonblue asked Tamen about a British study of crime, the CESW, especially about the rape statistics:

“I looked at the source documents. Is the reason why there is such a low rate of men reporting “serious sexual assault” in both the alternative and current questionnaires?”

Tamen answered:

“Yes, there are two reasons I can see right away.

1) The number is low because it doesn’t count men raped by envelopment (I guess you knew this):

Serious sexual assault in the current questionnaire only includes rape by penetration by a penis or an object (sexual assault by penetration) and doesn’t include “being made to penetrate”. This in line with UK’s Sexual Offence Act of 2003 which defines rape in a way that requires that the perpetrator has a penis he penetrates the victim with (no female rapists in the UK, although I believe a woman has been convicted for accessory to rape when she encouraged, enabled and abetted a man who raped another woman).

Serious sexual assault in the alternative question set includes in addition to a comprehensive list of ways to be penetrated by a penis, body part or object the choice “Did some other sex act not described above” alternative which might be a fit for rape by envelopment. But if one read the methodology report carefully one finds that any respondents who answered “Did some other sex act not described above” is counted as non-victims.

As we know from the NISVS 2010 Report a large portion of men who are raped are raped by envelopment. In the NISVS 2010 it was 1.4% vs 4.8%, In CWES it’s impossible to say since “being made to penetrate” is not a single category, but is lumped in with “sexual touching”, but 0.5% – 0.3% are raped and 1.1% – 2.5% report sexual touching. I am afraid that doesn’t tell us much as I suspect sexual touching will not catch many of the male victims of rape by envelopment. I for one would never label what happened to me for mere “sexual touching”.

2) The number is low because it doesn’t count a large subset of victims who have been raped (as defined by the SOA2003):

The CSEW asked about incidents happening since the respondents turned 16. NISVS 2010 also included CSA in the lifetime numbers where they found that 25% of the men who experienced rape (as defined by CDC) did so when they were 10 or younger (12.7% for women). What percentage of male victims were victimized before the age of 16 is not reported in the NISVS 2010. If the age demographic of male victims in the UK is similar to male victims in the US then a large subset of victims are not reported in the tables in the linked report.”

Tamen expanded on this in an earlier comment at Reddit MensRights

http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1dbc0h/crime_survey_for_england_and_wales_victims_of/

” It has been brought to my attention that the Crime Survery for England and Wales (CESW) did a split-sample experience to evaluate a new question set. I have criticized the published report of the CESW (which apparently is based on the answers from the original question set) in a comment at FeministCritics.

Home Office published a methodology report titled Analysis of the 2010/11 British Crime Survey intimate personal violence split-sample experiment with an analysis of the differences between the old and the new questionaires. Among some of the more interesting findings was that the rate of men reporting victimization increased with the new question set. In fact the new question set found that more men than women reported having been sexually assaulted by their partner the last year (Table 2 page 22).

So what question does this prompts from the analysts?

If the alternative question set is favoured then are further amendments needed to minimise the risk of reporting experiences that should not be classed as IPV? Should these be limited to the stalking questions, less serious sexual assault questions or to others?

The cynic in me is pretty sure which incidents they think are overreported (not really IPV).

But then I was really floored. What I will quote here is related to the following question (NIPV35AA- NIPV35AF) in the new CSEW questionaire:

You said that someone has forced you to have sexual intercourse or take part in some other sexual act when you were not capable of consent or when you made it clear you did not want to. What did they do to you?

If this has happened more than once since you were 16, please select all those that apply.

We need this level of detail to allow us to classify the exact type of sexual assault experienced.

Penetrated your [vagina or anus/anus] with their penis
Penetrated your [vagina or anus/anus] with an object (including fingers)
Penetrated your mouth with their penis
Did some other sex act not described above
Don’t know
Don’t want to answer
Any male who has been made to penetrate someone else would answer “Did some other sex act not described above”. Let’s see how that is analysed:

In the analysis presented here those respondents who said that they had only experienced ‘some other sex act not described above’ were categorised as non-victims to ensure that the category of serious sexual assault retained the same definition as in the current question set (this is not an option in the current question set).

WHAT!? Non-victims!?”

This is the comment at Feminist Critics that Tamen refers to:

“I recently was made aware by a feminist Redditor of a report of sexual offences based on (among others) the Crime Survey for England and Wales. The report found a much higher victmization rate for females than for men. I took a closer look and what follows is a slightly edited version of the reply I made her:

The UK uses the archaic common law definition of rape in its Sexual Offences Act 2003 – it defines rape in a way that requires that the perpetrator must have a penis.
It defines Assault by penetration in a way that requires that the victim’s body has been penetrated by an object or part of the perpetrators body.

The Brits have their own version of the NCVS called CSEW – Crime Survey for England and Wales. The most recent one was published January 2013. The Ministry of Justice, Home Office and the Office for National Statistics published in January a report looking specifically at the sexual offences part of the CSEW as well as police reports, court proceeding, sentencing, duration of cases, offender management and offender histories (recidivist rates, multiple convictions etc.). The report was published January 10th 2013 and is called:

An Overview of Sexual Offending in England and Wales.

Let’s examine to what extent this report counts male victims of rape (including rape by envelopment) to see if it’s possible to estimate the number of male victims in the UK in a similar manner to how one could find the male number of male rape victims in the US by looking at the “being made to penetrate” category.

Rape and Assault by penetration are grouped by the report in a category called: “Most serious sexual offence.”

A man being forced to have oral, vaginal or anal intercourse with a woman without his consent is a victim of sexual assault by the law. The definition of sexual assault is:
Section 3 of the Act makes it an offence for any male or female to intentionally touch another person sexually without his or her consent. A person found guilty of this offence could be sent to prison for a maximum of ten years.

Meaning that by UK law a man raped by a woman forcing him to have unprotected vaginal sex with her without his consent are put in the same category as a woman being touched on the butt by a man — not to defend the latter, but there is a difference between those two.

It’s even worse in the CSEW survey because there it’s being categorized as “Other sexual offences”, which includes exposure, sexual activity with children (excluding rape and sexual assault) and sexually threatening behaviour.

In fact, when I look at the questionnaire used for the CSEW survey they base their findings on, I actually found a set of questions which male victims of rape by envelopment may answer affirmatively:

Since you were 16, has anyone ever forced you to have sexual intercourse or take part in some other sexual act, when you were not capable of consent or when you made it clear you did not want to?

By sexual intercourse we mean vaginal, anal or oral penetration.
This may have been a partner, a family member, a friend or work colleague, someone you knew casually, or a stranger.

If the respondent answered yes to the above they are asked another question (NIPV35AA- NIPV35AF):

You said that someone has forced you to have sexual intercourse or take part in some other sexual act when you were not capable of consent or when you made it clear you did not want to. What did they do to you?

If this has happened more than once since you were 16, please select all those that apply.

We need this level of detail to allow us to classify the exact type of sexual assault experienced.
* Penetrated your [vagina or anus/anus] with their penis
* Penetrated your [vagina or anus/anus] with an object (including fingers)
* Penetrated your mouth with their penis
* Did some other sex act not described above
* Don’t know
* Don’t want to answer

Here one would think that any male victims of “being made to penetrate someone else” must answer “(4) Did some other sex act not described above” to be counted correctly. However, the question itself listed “some other sex act” as something separate from sexual intercourse — thus perhaps confusing the respondent. Conceivably, victims of a forced kiss, a grope and so on could also answer “yes” here, as those could be understood to be some sex act other than intercourse. As I understand it, respondents are more likely to respond to questions which describe the acts rather than the name of the act or a bag-name of a set of acts. It also really doesn’t matter that this question was under the heading “SERIOUS SEXUAL ASSAULT”, because if the answer is “4″ then it’s being put in the category “Other sexual offences” in the summary, tables and charts in the report.

Contrast that with this question asked under the section: “SERIOUS SEXUAL ASSAULT”:

Since the age of 16, has ANYONE ever done any of the following things to you, when you made it clear that you did not agree or when you were not capable of consent? This may have been a partner, a family member, someone you knew casually, or a stranger.

* Penetrated your [vagina or anus/anus] with their penis, even if only slightly
* Penetrated your [vagina or anus/anus] with an object (including fingers) even if only slightly
* Penetrated your mouth with their penis even if only slightly
* ATTEMPTED to penetrate your [vagina or anus/anus] with their penis, but did not succeed
* ATTEMPTED to penetrate your [vagina or anus/anus] with an object (including fingers) but did not succeed
* ATTEMPTED to penetrate your mouth with their penis but did not succeed
This is very specific, just about every possible combination of a way a victim can be penetrated is listed. It is therefore likely to catch more respondents.

There is a follow-up question to those who reported more than one sexual assault: they ask about the nature of the last one (SSA6A- SSA6I) and the answer alternatives are:
* Penetrated your [vagina or anus/anus] with their penis, even if only slightly
* Penetrated your [vagina or anus/anus] with an object (including fingers) even if only slightly
* Penetrated your mouth with their penis even if only slightly
* ATTEMPTED to penetrate your [vagina or anus/anus] with their penis, but did not succeed
* ATTEMPTED to penetrate your [vagina or anus/anus] with an object (including fingers) but did not succeed
* ATTEMPTED to penetrate your mouth with their penis but did not succeed
* Something else
* Don’t know/can’t remember
* Don’t wish to answer

Here our hypothetical male victim of forced intercourse with a female perpetrator has to answer “7 Something else”.

Again, as soon as he does answer 7 he is put into the “Other sexual offences” category in the report.

This survey does a poor job of capturing men who have been raped by envelopment. The way questions are designed almost ensure that it will under-report male victims who were made to penetrate someone else. Grouping the percentage of men who actually had been made to penetrate someone else together with the likely-higher percentages of victims having been groped, flashed and so on effectively hides how many men are victims of “being made to penetrate someone else”. It also helps maintain the belief that women are victimized by sexual offenses more than men.
It reminds me of the commonly-voiced notion that more girls than boys experience childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Statistics and studies often leave it at that. However, the picture does change a bit when another study found that while more women have experienced CSA, women are more likely to report “touching,” and it turns out that an equal number of girls and boys experience CSA in the form of rape (intercourse).
[Comment slightly edited for clarity. —ballgame]

http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2009/01/05/can-women-rape-men-rp/#comment-504891

 

In answer to a question with regard to the situation in Norway on the comment thread for Mary Koss post Tamen responded:

“Thank you for your question Dr. Ramore.
I wasn’t aware of any studies done on male victims in Norway. Now you have spurred me on to dig a bit more to see what there is and I found that there has been a few studies done among youths, for instance:

Mossige S, Huang L. The prevalence of sexual offences and abuse within a Norwegian youth population Nor J Epidemiol 2010; 20(1):53-62 (in Norwegian with a short english abstract. It uses numbers from two large national youth surveys done in 2004 and 2007.
I haven’t read it in detail yet, but I haven’t found any clear description of the definition of rape which they use. They operate with some categories called “unwanted intercourse” (one for oral, one for anal and one for vaginal) which is separate from rape. I presume this is due to rape requiring physical force or threat of physical force in Norwegian law (unless the victim is incapable of giving consent, for instance by being unconscious). Amnesty and others have been lobbying for removing the requirement of physical force (or threat of physical force) from the legal definition of rape – making it only dependent on absense of consent.

They found the following:

About 1 in 10 rape victims are male (4.3% vs 0.4%)
About 1 in 10 victims of attempted rape are male (7.1% vs 0.7%).
Unwanted sexual experiences:
Someone has exposed themselves to you
Someone has touched in a sexual manner
You have touched yourself in sexual manner in front of others
You have touched someone else in a sexual manner
You had to masturbate while someone watched
You’ve had intercourse (vaginal)
You’ve had oral sex
You’ve had anal sex
You’ve had another form of sex
You have experienced one or more experiencesfrom the list
I’ll list the results from the more serious experiences:

1 of 3 who report unwanted vaginal intercourse are male (12% vs 6.5%)
7.7% of girls vs 5.8% of boys reported unwanted oral sex
2.5% of girls vs 1.5% of boys reported unwanted anal sex
35.6% of girls and 22.5% of boys report that they’ve experienced one or more items on the list of unwanted sexual experiences.

They survey asked about the perpetrator in the first and in the last experience. Girls report 99% male perpetrators and 1% female perpetrators – the same for both the first and last. Boys report 50-60% female perpetrator and 50-40% male perpetrators.
The largest category for perpetrator for both girls and boys are “friend, boyfriend/girlfriend or acquaintance”.

What form was the first unwanted sexual experience – voluntarily or under duress/force.
The question was; how well does the following statements describe what happened
Type: Girls vs Boys who answered that the statement described the experienced well.

Too young to understand: 25.8% vs 15.3%
Participated voluntarily, but regretted afterwards: 11.8% vs 8.9%
Was tricked/conned: 27% vs 13.9%
Was persuaded: 20.3% vs 10.5%
Mild pressure: 26.9% vs 10.3%
Strong pressure: 23% vs 7.4%
Physical force (constrained/pinned down, threats of violence or violence): 31.1% vs 9.6%”

Genderratic thanks Tamen for his analysis of these two studies.

He makes his case pretty conclusively that they appear structured to conceal male rape victimization. What makes this especially is that both these studies were government funded, funded by the very citizens who these studies erase.

MALE DISPOSABILITY – Mary P. Koss and influencing a government entity to erase male victims of rape

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SUMMARY:

1. Mary P. Koss insists on a definition of rape that conceals the incidence of female-on-male rape.

2. The center for disease control (CDC) is a government entity charged with serving the entire public and all citizens of the United States equally.

3. There is an appearance that Mary P. Koss has by her association with the CDC influenced it to formulate findings in a way that favors one group of citizens over another, that in fact significantly disadvantages the second group of citizens.

4. Anyone in a position of public trust, including any position supported by public funds, has a responsibility to prevent her or his private opinions from compromising the mission of the organization she or he serves to serve all citizens equally.

5. There is an appearance that rather than preventing her personal opinions from compromising the mission of the organization she is associated with, she has allowed those personal opinions to influence the function of that public entity.

DISCUSSION:

Mary P. Koss is a widely-quoted writer on the incidence of rape. Her methods and her claims have been controversial. In 2009 a controversy developed around a paper of hers – articles and threads here, here, and here.

She is an influential writer on the subject and her methods and results deserve scrutiny.

In a post earlier this year commenter Tamen noted a tendency in Koss to minimize the scope and incidence of rape of males, especially by women. He said at the time:

“However, Victory_Disease on Reddit made me aware of this paper by Mary P Koss: Detecting the Scope of Rape : A Review of Prevalence Research Methods which show that it’s not simply a matter of focusing on female victims, but rather a conscious effort to exclude male victims of rape from the term rape.”

He specifically noted a section in that paper where she says:

“Although consideration of male victims is within the scope of the legal statutes, it is important to restrict the term rape to instances where male victims were penetrated by offenders. It is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted sexual intercourse with a woman.
p. 206”

He goes on to point how she chooses terms that emphasize or exaggerate male agency and minimize or trivialize female agency. He finishes by noting a paragraph in which she recommends a formulation of “rape” that is gynonormative, such that if the crime does not involve penetration of the victim, it is not rape. The effect if not the intent is to erase the crime of rape by envelopment.

Later Tamen noted a similarity between Koss’ position and the one reflected in the CDC’s formulation of rape in its NISVS 2010 Report. In the course of pursuing the matter with the CDC (the text of his correspondence with the CDC is at the end of this post.), and getting a dismissively tautological and circular answer, he stumbled across a piece of information that may bear on the similarity in positions he had noted.

This is the history of association between Mary P. Koss and the CDC he found:

1996: Expert Panel Member, “Definitions of Sexual Assault,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

2003- : Selected to direct the Sexual Violence Applied Research Advisory Group, VAWNET.org, the national online resource on violence against women funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

2003- : Member, team of expert advisors, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on teen partner violence

2003- : Panel of Experts, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control on scales to measure intimate partner violence, resulted in the publication of CDC Intimate Partner Violence compendium, 2005

2003-4: Consultant, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC Intimate Partner Violence compendium, 2005 IPV Compendium on assessment of sexual violence and inclusion as recommended standard assessments in the field of two Koss-authored assessments (Sexual Experiences Survey-victimization, and Sexual Experiences Survey-perpetration)

 

Again, Mary P. Koss is entitled to hold any personal opinions she chooses, however odious. She has however no right to use her position of trust to impose these personal and private opinions on public policy or results of research intended to form that public policy. Furthermore public entities with which she or anyone is associated have a responsibility also to ensure that the barrier between private and personal opinion and public policy is maintained and safeguarded.

If this were simply an isolated instance of one person misusing her position, it would be a small matter and simple to correct. It is however part of a larger consensus and pattern of distortion of evidence and erasure when it concerns male victims of rape in general and especially male victims of female rapists. The probelm is quite structurla and goes to the locla level where evidence is distorted by either a failure or a refusal to report and record even quite clear cases of rape as rape, as in the case of this mother who sodomized her two-year-old son so forcibly with a vibrator that surgery was necessary to remove it. Note how the incident is being charged: as child abuse and sexual misconduct with a minor rather than child rape. If sodomizing an infant so severley that it requires surgery to remove the rape device is not child rape, then nothing is.

Absolutely vile.

 

Tamen’s correspondence wiht the CDC as posted on Reddit Men’s Rights:

CDC’s response to whether they will categorize “being made to penetrate someone else” in future reports (self.MensRights)

submitted 2 days ago* by Tamen_

I had a mail account failure and forgot/missed that I a year ago sent this mail to the CDC:

Hi,

One finding of the NISVS 2010 Report which was not reported anywhere in press releases and media (as far as I could see) was that 1.1% of men reported being made to penetrate someone else the last 12 months. That 1.1% of women reported being raped the last 12 months puts this into a perspective which goes very much against common beliefs about male victimization.

Was this finding not interesting or conclusive enough to at least mention in press releases?

The lifetime numbers differs more. Did CDC look into why there was such a difference in lifetime prevalency numbers and numbers for the last 12 months for male victims of “being made to penetrate someone else”?

Will future CDC Reports continue to keep “being made to penetrate someone else” as a category separate from rape or will they be put together/seen as the same as in the new FBI definition of rape?

Best regards, Xxxxxx Yyyyyy

A week later I got the response (my emphasis):

Mr. Yyyyyy,

Thank you for your interest in the NISVS Survey. The NISVS subject matters experts have provided the following information in response to your inquiry:

We understand your concern that the 12 month prevalence for Made to Penetrate was not included in the press release. Unfortunately, due to space limitation in a press release, we were not able to highlight many of the important findings. This information, however, was included in main summary report. In addition, we are currently working on preparing a number of more in-depth reports to follow our first summary report, including one that focuses specifically on sexual violence.

With regards to the definitional issues you mentioned, Made to Penetrate is a form of sexual violence that is distinguished from rape. Being made to penetrate represents times when the victim was made to, or there was an attempt to make them, sexually penetrate someone else (i.e., the perpetrator) without the victim’s consent. In contrast, rape represents times when the victim, herself or himself, was sexually penetrated or there was an attempt to do so. In both rape and made to penetrate situations, this may have happened through the use of physical force (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threats to physically harm; it also includes times when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent.

In summary, rape victimization constitutes times when the victim is penetrated. Made to penetrate are incidents where the victim is forced to penetrate their perpetrator, so does not meet the definition of rape.

Appendix C on page 106 of the report lists the victimization questions. As you will see, the questions were asked in such a way that the perpetrator was the one being penetrated by the victim in made to penetrate cases, not a third party. For example, “how many people have ever used physical force or threats of physical harm to make you have vaginal sex with them?” Or “how many people have ever used physical force or threats of physical harm to make you perform anal sex, meaning they made you put your penis into their anus?” Or “when you were drunk, high, drugged or passed out and unable to consent, how many people ever made you receive oral sex, meaning that they put their mouth on your {if male: penis}?”

The FBI definition of rape does not apply here – made to penetrate as we have defined it is distinct from rape and should not be included in a definition of rape.

Until the special reports are available and/or the data set is ready for public use, if there are additional specific questions we can answer, we would be happy to do so. We appreciate your interest in these data.

Sincerely, CDC NISVS Team

Apparently they thought my question about whether “being made to penetrate someone else” would be categorized as rape as per the FBI definition which was revealed shortly after the NISVS 2010 Report was published was due to my inability to read the definitions of rape and “being amde to penetrate someone else” in the report itself.

Apparently it is self-evident for them that it’s not rape and hence they are perfectly aligned with Mary P Koss recommendations (“It is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted sexual intercourse with a woman” page 206 in the full article) also in future surveys and doesn’t plan to align the definition with the “new” FBI definition of rape – which can and in my view should be interpreted to include rape by envelopment.

I know that that paper on how to measure rape prevalency by Mary P Koss has been cited by CDC in other contexts (Reference 7).

I decided to look at Mary P. Koss’ CV:

1996: Expert Panel Member, “Definitions of Sexual Assault,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

2003- : Selected to direct the Sexual Violence Applied Research Advisory Group, VAWNET.org, the national online resource on violence against women funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

2003- : Member, team of expert advisors, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on teen partner violence

2003- : Panel of Experts, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control on scales to measure intimate partner violence, resulted in the publication of CDC Intimate Partner Violence compendium, 2005

2003-4: Consultant, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC Intimate Partner Violence compendium, 2005 IPV Compendium on assessment of sexual violence and inclusion as recommended standard assessments in the field of two Koss-authored assessments (Sexual Experiences Survey-victimization, and Sexual Experiences Survey-perpetration)

No wonder it’s self-evident for the CDC that it is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted sexual intercourse with a woman.

Edited for readability and quote-fixing

Edited again: The title of course should be: CDC’s response to whether they will categorize “being made to penetrate someone else” as rape in future reports

DOUBLE STANDARDS – Dick jokes, dick staring, hypocrisy and control

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EquilibriumShift commented in the thread on DOUBLE STANDARDS – Jon Hamm and the Female Gaze:

This is absolutely related to the previous post re: Adria Richards power play to police sexuality to her standards.

He’s right. This really is about women controlling men’s behavior and speech. Adria Richards had the management of a conference throw out two men based on her accusation, and this accusation later caused one of these men to lose his job. That’s power. In the case of Jon Hamm’s package, women are indulging in behavior they excoriate in men.

And that excoriation is not the impotent rage of the powerless; women have all sorts of powerful allies they can marshal against men they can portray as offending or threatening them.

It is the same vein of thinking that allows a woman to become offended when he makes a pun that alludes to a penis, when that very same woman has no problem making dick jokes herself. It’s the same thinking that allows women to become offended at the sight of pixelated titties in video games, while ignoring the hundreds (thousands?) of bare chested men. (Ever played the video game “Heavy Rain”? As a check on how highly you value sexuality of the two genders, were you more shocked by Ethan getting nude and taking a shower, or by Madison doing the same? I know I didn’t bat an eyelash when the guy got nude, but I was a little shocked I would “get to” see the chick get naked.)

Then he picks up on the false equivalence of breasts and penises when it comes to staring.

Somehow, breasts are always compared to penises, as you noted, Ginkgo. Sexual economy (and it’s inherent devaluation of men’s sexuality) at its finest. And the women who do so are the self-same writers who rage, all full of sound and fury, at “objectification” of women, and how women’s sexuality is valued so highly. Of course, they would never say it like that, because it doesn’t sound ominous that way. They would of course say a woman is judged by her sexuality, or that women only matter to men because of their sexuality. One might as well say that men only matter to women because of their ability to provide stability and safety.

This misuse of “objectification” is just one more instance of damseling, in this case, the form I call “Turning privilege into oppression.” Is female sexuality more valued than male, i.e., does it confer privilege? Then it must immediately be spun as an oppression, and the objectification narrative is trotted out.

He continues:

At any rate, I think this very well presents a solution to the argument that many 3rd wave feminists put forth:

1) An oppressed group always understands what it is like to live as both oppressed and oppressor

2) Women are oppressed by men

Therefore: Women understand what it is like to live as a man.

I don’t think the bullshit level on this argument really needs to be pointed out to people here, but the whole John Hamm situation really highlights just how wrong at least one of those two premises is. FWIW, I think both tend to be wrong, with 1) being pretty much wrong, and 2) being utter crap.

His point is that the women writing about Jon Hamm clearly have no clue about men, what men experience, what’s going on here.See Arwa Mahdawi’s article in the Guardian for an example. In other words, they are femsplaining.

To which I add:

The first half of that syllogism is false. Sun Zi tells us that if you understand your opponent and yourself, you will prevail. It follows then that if you do not prevail, you probably do not understand your opponent, your oppressor, as well as you imagine.

The second half of that syllogism is a matter not in evidence. Every instance of oppression of women that can be sited is a result of women’s social neoteny, a neoteny that obligates men to feed, house and protect women form the outside world and its perils. Women can decry this all they like but until they stop enjoying the benefits of that neoteny, those objections are hypocritical.

Hypoagency: These two cases put hypoagency and its uses on display. Here in both cases we see women being as agentive as they want to be and then disavowing that agentivity. Adria Richards aggresses two men, resulting in the loss of livelihood for one of them – and yet gets to present herself as the victim, and the believed! Women stare at Jon Hamm’s crotch, and yet somehow he’s the one aggressing them, he’s the one who needs to and his behavior.

Hypogency really is benevolent sexism. Its benevolent to women and sexist towards men.

FEMALE PRIVILEGE – Gynonormativity – Donglegate in the context of sexual harassment politics

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The buzz at the moment is the foofarah over Adria Richards and her behavior at a tech conference. What is interesting is not that a woman took offense at something a man said in her hearing and found a way to turn that against him and get some publicity for herself. That kind of thing is bird-in-the-backyard stuff, been going on for centuries.

I’m not going to waste your time repeating the details of this affairs. The whole thing is all over the internet.

The big news is the reaction. I don’t mean that ferocity that has been lobbed at Adria Richards. That kind of thing is also not news. And by the way, when you are the cause of someone, in this case two people, losing their jobs, in a climate where this kind of thing has happened enough that fear of it is general (see also Sexual Harassment policies, guidelines and enforcement actions just about anywhere) you have no reason to be surprised when the reaction across the community is vitriolic.

The reaction I am talking about is from women in the tech industry. SilencingNarrative on Reddit MensRights has a self-reddit up saying that he sees a turning point here, not just for himself I feeling he can trust women in that field more because of their response to the incident. He sees it as a turning point in the gynonorming trend in male-dominated fields and the workplace in general.

Women are losing no time in condemning Richards and often in quite blunt and harsh terms. Amanda Blum had quite a bit to say by way of background on Adria Richards and none of it was in her favor. She cuts to the bone on this, she says that Richards’ behavior has harmed women in the industry materially, undoing years and years of struggle on the part of women in the industry to be accepted as team members.
Amanda says Richards has painted women in the tech industry a irrational bitches no one can work with. SilencingNarrative says that the response of women in the industry has done more than reverse that harm, at least for him. Well done, Amanda Blum.

And look at this post at a blog called “….a whisper of dark wings”. It goes further in explaining the harm Richards caused, and in the process proving how adult and reasonable these women in the tech industry can be.

The misogyny underlying the assumptions that inform Richards’ actions are not lost on these women either.

And here’s a thread on Hacker News, starting with an apology from one of the guys involved, with most commenters telling him he’s not the one who should be apologizing.

Back when women started to enter the corporate world and the workplace in general, back in the 60s, people thought there would be a natural process of accomodation, but they were ignoring a feature of the gender system that constructs femininity so that women are the Moral Guardians of society.

This happens because women have an outsized role in child-rearing and socialization in our society. This gynonormativity s so entrenched in the culture that when women go into male spaces and find it not in effect, they call the situation sexist and misogynist – in other words a setting that is not female dominated, at least in its norms, is unacceptable to them.

And in the context of the tech industry, an industry staffed mainly with men who have issues with women because of the way women treat and have treated them, this gynonormativity and the tech industry culture were a combustible mixture. Adria Richards may have touched off a cleansing fire that may spread beyond the tech industry.

DOUBLE STANDARDS – Feds look into discipline rates in Seattle schools

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“SEATTLE (AP) — The U.S. Department of Education is investigating the high rate at which black students are disciplined in Seattle Public Schools, a problem that has plagued the district for decades.”

Well good for the feds; it’s high time.

This is in the context of a general culture-wide conception of black people as especially troublesome, violent, crime-prone – requiring special measures to restrain all that, for their own good of course. That’s always been the justification. That’s the justification offered for the way police interact with young black men. School is supposed to be a safe place for children? Pffft… These schools, and probably the same is true across the country, are indoctrinating these kids, and all their peers watching all this too, in the same racist lies as society at large does.

This article concerns Seattle but I doubt the situation down the road in Tacoma is much different. I don’t know the statistics for Tacoma but I do know that when I taught there almost 20 years ago a lot of elementary school teachers assumed and expected black kids to be more unruly or more troublesome even when they plainly were not. It was vague and subtle, but that is exactly the unaddressed “common sense” nonsense that quite often forms the basis for disciplinary decisions – harshness of penalties, judgment on who started what, etc.

“According to district data, in the 2011-2012 school year, nearly 13 percent of black high school students received at least one short-term suspension. The equivalent figure for white students was just under 4 percent. In middle schools, the rate was 7 percent of white students and 27 percent of blacks.”

Racial double standards are not the only double standards when it comes ot disciplinary actions in schools, are they?

So I wonder what the school districts records would show on discipline rates for boys and girls. Because as we all know, boys are just more unruly in class, concentrate less, color outside the lines more. Boys are just trouble – throw rocks at them. Actually that’s only if you can’t handle your male students as well as your female students – if you are professionally incompetent, in other words.

I really would love to see those disciplinary stats for Seattle broken down by gender, as well as the hidden disciplinary stats – the stats that show Ritalin and Adderal usage as administered in the schools.

Do you think there will be many surprises?

FEMALE PRIVILEGE – Women’s control over men’s reproduction

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Just a quick little round-up, one day’s fishing, of examples of a woman’s control over a man’s reproduction, or in one case, her power to force him to subsidize her reproductive choices for children that are not even his, a little “bird in the back yard” exercise. I didn’t have to look far at all.

Montana ignoring rights of fathers by requiring husband’s name on birth certificates

Apparently Montana requires the husband’s name go onto a birth certificate regardless of the actual paternity of the child, however obvious it may be that the father is some other man. Even DNA tests are not recognized as proof of paternity.

It’s obvious how this empowers the mother at the expense of the father. As the article points out, the mother is empowered to force paternity on the father even when the child was conceived through infidelity. It gives a wife license to get pregnant by whomever she chooses and her husband no choice but to raise the child. Of course even divorce will not free him from responsibility for his wife’s child.*

h/t: http://http://news.mensactivism.org/node/20878

Arizona – a woman dupes a man into thinking he’s the father and now he can’t repudiate it

This is a case where a woman got pregnant, convinced her boyfriend he was the father, and by the time he found out the truth the statute of limitations to change the birth cert had run out. Oopsie. And of course this in the context of a legal regime where the mother can dismiss the father entirely from his child’s life – leave the state with him if she chooses, easily get Temporary Protective Orders, one after another, just by claiming to be in fear, any number of arts and crafts the law affords her. That’s some patriarchal oppression, that is

h/t: http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/

Louisiana – Sperm-jacking, which we all know is a complete myth

 In this case it’s no myth, and there’s no question of the father and mother having sex resulting in a pregnancy, because in this case the woman just got a sperm bank to give her his sperm which he had deposited there. She had no claim to it; they just gave it to her. Oh, and of course because he didn’t even know of the pregnancy or that the child even existed - because the mother concealed that from him, failed to inform him –  he has played no role in the child’s life, so he’s on very shaky ground if he tries to get any of his parental rights recognized. On the other hand the mother will have no such problem getting his parental responsibilities recognized. And DNA tests run only one way, to establish his duties but not his rights. As the article at Fathers and Families points out, when it comes to his parental rights nurture in the form of the mother rules, but when it comes to his parental duties nature rules.

h/t: http://http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/

Edited to add:

Green shoots – West Virginia judge reverses a decision and voids CS payments where parental rights have been voided

“”PARKERSBURG – A circuit judge has ruled a Wood County family law judge erred in ordering a Parkersburg man to support a child who’s no longer his.

Judge J.D. Beane on Jan. 22 granted Larry Ryan’s writ of prohibition against Judge Brian C. Dempster. In his writ, Ryan argued Dempster usurped his authority by making him pay child support for a daughter from whom the state severed his parental rights two years ago.”

There is not much left to comment on here. This is a good, sane and sensible decision. I don’t remember the specific cases, but this kind of thing seesm to be  becoming a trend in this region. Examples appreciated.

h/t: http://wvrecord.com/news/258243-with-parental-rights-voided-man-not-subject-to-child-support-payments

* Changed. see comments for discussion.

IT’S SHIT LIKE THIS, FEMINISTS – This Is Why Male Rape Survivors Don’t Come Forward (or Gendered Victim-Blaming)

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Background: James Landrith was a 22-year-old active duty Marine 25 years ago when he showed mercy to the pregnant wife of a friend and sheltered her for the night, and then awoke to find her straddling him, with his penis in her, raping him. She threatened him with rape charges if he ever reported her rape of him. He knew he – a fit, young Marine – would have exactly zero chance of ever being believed, and even if her were believed, of ever having her rape of him regarded as rape. He was in the real rape culture, where women have unimpeded access and a full right to a man’s body.

He finally went public in 2008 and posted this article on his blog. Then it was picked up on Pajamas Media, a rather right-leaning group blog. The comments section became a cesspit of knuckle-dragging victim-blaming and sexist denialism, led by quite a few men, although one especially toxic commenter was a woman. Naturally his strongest supporters were female rape victims.

And just to prove there is no daylight between right-wing gender traditionalists and radfem gender traditionalists, at least on the subject of rape, this has kicked up again. This time the knuckle-dragging rape denialist man-haters came right after James:

Well, today I was treated to some of the worst victim-blaming I’ve received yet from rape denialists and self-appointed gender police. I’m so tired of this garbage. Why is this okay? Why is this tolerated? Why are so many people still pretending that this shit doesn’t happen to male survivors as well? I’m over being nice. I’m over tolerating the excuse-making bystanders and the colluders. I’m over all of it.

THIS * is why so many male rape survivors stay silent. THIS is why so many of our lives end prematurely and violently – especially those who deal with MST (Military Sexual Trauma). THIS is why most of us will NEVER tell ANYONE. THIS is why so many of us will never heal. THIS is why it appears that so many male survivors seem absent in the fight against sexual violence. Not only do we have to fight against the same victim-blaming from low IQ knuckle-dragging troglodytes that female survivors deal with regularly, we are also targeted often by women who have decided that men can’t be raped and if they are – then they are liars who must be bullied, mocked, harassed and shouted down into shameful silence.

 

* Yes, these links all go to James’ article. I couldn’t get to the sites he was linking to because of a filter issue but even if I had been able, go to his site anyway. He deserves the hits.

James continues:

I’m trying not to hate. I’m trying to calm down. It is going to be really difficult. I don’t know how successful that will be going forward. People are too damned evil and some of them are just plain worthless. Male survivors, just like our sisters in healing, have a lot of work ahead to fight these types of sick, disgusting, worthless excuses for humanity. For now, I’m just going to have to feel these emotions and try to keep on target. I’m not going anywhere and I’m not shutting up, but I am pissed off and beyond my levels of tolerance for disgusting asshattery right now. Please understand and let me breathe through it. I’m not sure how not to be pissed off right now. I need to accept that.

This all happens in a wider context of trivialization of male rape, smearing of male rape victims as liars, whiners, less-than-men or right on to accusing them of being the rapist in the rape, as John Markley catalogues here. How’s that for victim-blaming and rape denial and rape apology?

As John goes on to say, “Like many feminists, much of what Murphy says parallels traditionalist attitudes, but here mere parallel gives way to outright convergence.”

This is the issue for feminists: If these vile rape apologist articles are not representative of feminism, then feminists need to say more than “That’s not my feminism.” – much more. Because we are not talking about your precious feminism, we are talking about everyone’s feminism, the feminism of all feminists, and if this is in some way unrepresentative of the movement as a whole, then feminists need to say explicitly that this anti-feminist and that these people are anti-feminist, that they are not feminists at all. Anything less is solidarity with these vile, contemptible people if you still, despite failing to condemn them, call yourself by the same title they call themselves.

So far though it has been a womanist rather than a feminist who has been the clearest on the issue of male rape victims. Not a surprise, really.

MALE DISPOSABILITY – Mary P. Koss, rape apologist, defines male rape victims out of existence

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Mary P. Koss is a widely-quoted writer on the incidence of rape. Her methods and her claims have been controversial. In 2009 a controversy developed around a paper of hers – articles and threads here, here, and here.

She is an influential writer on the subject and her methods and results deserve scrutiny. Commenter Tamen has contributed an item of interest in this connection:

I did know that the often quoted study by Mary P. Koss didn’t count male victims of female perpetrators, but I always assumed this was incidental by her focusing on female victims or by the authors inability to conceptualize that men can be forced to penetrate a women without his consent.

However, Victory_Disease on Reddit made me aware of this paper by Mary P Koss: Detecting the Scope of Rape : A Review of Prevalence Research Methods which show that it’s not simply a matter of focusing on female victims, but rather a conscious effort to exclude male victims of rape from the term rape.

I’ll quote some pertinent sections:

Although consideration of male victims is within the scope of the legal statutes, it is important to restrict the term rape to instances where male victims were penetrated by offenders. It is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted sexual intercourse with a woman.

p. 206

Note how she uses the word “engage”. A man being made to penetrate a woman either by force, threats or coercion is engaging in sex with her? He is the actor.

On screening for rape using adopted colloquial or euphemistic language (like “Has anyone ever tried to make you have sexual relations with them against your will”):

Among men, the terms “sex” and “sexual relations” may activate schemas for situations where they penetrated women. Clarification is necessary to ensure that male respondents realize that the situations of interest are those in which they were penetrated forcibly and against their will by another person, and not situations where they felt pressure or coercion to have sexual relations with a woman partner.

p. 208

Note how she uses terms like “forcibly” and “against their will” when talking about the men being penetrated while when she talks about men penetrating women she uses terms like “felt pressure” and “coercion”.

She concludes with a set of recommendations, here is one of them:

2. If men and boys are to be included, care must be taken to ensure that their data are accurate counterparts of rape prevalence among women. This means that men must be reporting instances where they experienced penetration of their own bodies (or attempts).

p. 218

I see.

I seem to rememeber this kind of denialism being called rape apology elsewhere. What is the consensus here, is Mary P. Koss a rape apologist?

GENERAL – Light posting lately

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I’m getting married in the morning! Ding dong!
The bells are gonna chime. Pull out the stopper!
Let’s have a whopper! But get me to the church on time!

I gotta be there in the mornin’
Spruced up and lookin’ in me prime.
Girls, come and kiss me;
Show how you’ll miss me.
But get me to the church on time!

If I am dancin’ Roll up the floor.
If I am whistlin’ Whewt me out the door!
For I’m gettin’ married in the mornin’
Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime.
Kick up an rumpus But don’t lost the compass;
And get me to the church, Get me to the church,
For Gawd’s sake, get me to the church on time!

I have been a little preoccupied lately with wedding preparations and thank you for the forbearance you all have shown. Tomorrow I’m getting married, there won’t be a honeymoon, and I’ll be back in the saddle again. We did the ceremony Saturday.

Two meager bunches of calla lilies cost almost a hundred dollars. I had no idea. None. Where I grew up those were weeds. But then again even there they didn’t bloom in January.

So the house is ready, the food is ready, the guests are on thier way and we’ll do it in front of the fireplace – before a cross though, no chalice and dagger.

Back among you on Wednesday.

WEDNESDAY

That article was supposed to post on Friday, but I got busy and besides it would have distracted from Xakudo’s rather meatier posts anyway, so I let it slide. But I’m back on the block again.

The ceremony itself was short and efficient, but the minister made it dignified, relaxed and very warm. We held it in front of the fireplace in the living room. My husaabnd choked up during his vows and I managed to hold off telling him to pull himsefl together until the very end, when he had pulled himself together. My mehtod of keeping level was to stare forward or at the floor. Whatever works. Then when the minister proclaimed us married, everyone broke out in applause. This unsettled stodgy Episcopalian old me; this kind of thing is more Lutheran, but what really unsettled me was how long it went on – minutes and minutes, seemingly forever. Most of our friends there were straight; I hadn’t realized how much this meant to them too. I thanked them for coming and honoring us with their presence, and for their votes and said that this was one time the political was personal.