So apparently stopping sexual assault is bad?

Both male and female. There were no specifications.

 

Straw man argument: An argument against a position that is like the opponent's, but is easier to attack than their actual position. e.g. "You believe that the Middle East has legitimate reason to be angry at the U.S.? You must support terrorism." Straw man in bold. The term is a metaphor for someone who beats up a straw effigy of an opponent instead of facing the real thing.

It's in the first post. It didn't specify.

 

Let me rephrase then. So is the "Its On Us" thing about sexual assault on women or did it refer to both male and female sexual assault?

 

Pretty sure it's not discriminatory. There's no reason for it to be.

 

Facebook comments are why I don't talk to people. Ever. Hell I'm not even posting in here, this is all in my head.

 

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Technically I don't exist. I am not here. You are not seeing this post.

 

Really? Are men, as children, not told to stay away from strangers because, "They'll do bad things to you?" Granted, that's not the same thing as being told, "THEY'RE GONNA RAPE YOU," but thinking back to that later in life, it provides the same message. On the rare occasion that I'm out after dark, I make sure to avoid going past dark alleys, stay away from anybody whose face I can't clearly see, and get home very quickly because if I'm out late at night, it's only a matter of time before somebody does something to me, rape included. Even if I'm out all night and don't get assaulted, I live in an area where I could be a prime suspect in a crime just because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and if I get wrongly accused of rape it'll ruin my life even if I do end up getting proven not guilty. Of course, I might be a unique case because I've already got a minor phobia of being alone outside in the dark, but I don't doubt that a large majority of men have the same fears that I do.

Because it's out of place on a page dedicated to Dragon Age. It wasn't, "Here's something to do with Dragon Age and since it's relevant, let's talk about what we can do to prevent sexual assault." That would be in line with the theme of the page and probably get a good discussion going on the Dragon Age content they posted, how it relates to the more serious topic that was brought up alongside it, and how to make the more serious topic less necessary to discuss. Instead it was just, "Here's a serious topic that has nothing to do with out game. Discuss." That has nothing to do with the theme of the page and comes off as trying to pander to the SJW and feminist crowds and by extension, the extremely vocal minority that gives them a bad name. There would be no problem at all if it were on Bioware's page because that's actually about BioWare and what they as a company believe. Putting it on the Dragon Age page is, as I said, just pandering.

More or less. They're not really saying that it's unneeded, just that it tries to make rape the fault of the victim.

Now, I can't speak for other people, but considering that less than 1% of rapes are lied about, I wouldn't be skeptical on the rape itself. I would give all the love and support that I could and if it turned out that the victim was lying I'd be understandably angry. I would be skeptical about shaming the accused rapist, though. Until all the evidence is seen, I'll say that he's innocent until proven guilty because that's how our legal system works.

Not necessarily. Without these products, the only function that laws against rape serve is to keep honest people honest. Someone who is going to a bar specifically rape a woman will do so regardless of the law because he knows know that, in your own words:

With products like these, however, even the dishonest people will think twice because they don't know who might be wearing that special nail polish. If these students take it a step further, they'll probably be able to make a clear version to make it even harder to discern potential victims. Think about it from a non-victim's point of view. If you're in a bar looking to roofie some girl and take her home, are you going to take the chance that your potential victim will test her drink and get you arrested?

It's the difference between locking up my bike, locking up my bike in front of a camera, and locking up my state registered bike in front of a camera. One of those security measures is great to actively deter potential thieves while the others will only prevent people from being tempted to steal it.

But no kind of change, societal or legal, will do anything to prevent people who seek to hurt others from trying to hurt others. In the case of rape specifically, the only thing I can think of is some kind of chip implanted in everyone's genitals at birth that logs all kinds of sexual contact and has a "consent" mode that can be switched to and from at will. If that happened, proving rape would become downright trivial. Is this ethical? I don't know. But it would work and that's what really matters here.

After learning what kind of website this is over the past couple of weeks, I would not have made this thread. Whether or not you intended for an argument to start, these people (myself included) will find a reason to disagree with each other and become hostile about it.

A straw man argument is when a person takes one argument (a "real man"), presents it as a subtly different one that's easier to defeat (the strawman), and then defeats the new argument. A relevant example would go like this:
Alice: "I believe that the measures you proposed for preventing sexual assault will do more harm than good."
Bob: "Really? If you think that it's so wrong to prevent sexual assault, why don't you propose a better way to deal with it?"

Bob's rebuttal to the strawman argument is perfectly valid, but doesn't address Alice's argument at all. Bob has sent up a strawman to burn because he can't find a way to burn Alice's real argument .

 

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two things
good on dragon age for using their influence to try to cause at least a small positive change
and
people are well within their right to not want to be exposed to things unrelated to what they subscribed for. I can't say I particularly blame gamers for not having the most positive sentiments about social justice stuff right now, when people have been using it as a tool to marginalize them

 

Yep, exactly.

 

But Laurence's experience doesn't represent the vast majority of women. Very few women will exhibit that degree of anxiety when they're in the situations that Laurence mentioned. It's down to individual differences, such as personality, level of anxiety, etc. So I don't think it's a very good example of 'male privilege'.

 

This doesn't surprise me anymore.

We live in times where morality is foggy as ****; I don't blame them for seeing this and thinking it's just some gimmick.

 

The level of anxiety is caused by the environment. Laurence's anxiety exists and is as strong as it is because of the culture she grew up in. If you haven't experienced the things she has, that's one thing. If you have experienced those things and they didn't bother you, then we can talk.

The male privilege I referenced is not being subjected to those kinds of pressures and worries throughout life. I thought that Laurence's emotionally charged anecdote might drive the point home better than my cold description. It makes it more real to know that these things affect real people so strongly.

Compare:

Which of these does a better job of making the problem real to you?

 

Yes, Laurence's post is certainly more raw, but my point was that it's not something I would use to demonstrate male privilege. Anyway, I'd rather not discuss this as I don't want to make Laurence feel like I'm contradicting her when this is obviously an upsetting topic.

 

(In this post, I'm going to use he pronouns for males and she pronouns for females. I know that there are more than those two genders and that xe pronouns would be more appropriate so as not to assume these hypothetical people's genders, but there comes a point where it gets confusing to use the same pronoun for two people.)

But as Mish said, that still comes down to the individuals. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying that only females experience that kind of fear. Based on Laurence's description, I have the same kind of fear whenever I'm outside at night. It does not stem from the same root, but the fact is that every time I leave my house I'm thinking in the back of my mind that I'm not back before nightfall somebody is going to do something terrible to me. Even if I'm not, it always feels like I'm just as likely to be mugged, killed, followed home, and even raped as any female because it is my understanding that the people who do that out in the streets only care about getting what they want and then getting as far away as possible so they can get someone else. That's not even getting into other countries where female on male rape is common enough that both males and females have to be scared. In particular, Russia has a problem with attractive women who drug men in bars to take them home and rape them. Does "female privilege" exist in that situation?

It also sounds like you are saying that ALL females who live in this rape culture should experience this fear and that's problematic in itself because it implies that females who can defend themselves (that is to say, STRONG females) from the people who cause this fear don't exist

And keep in mind that male privilege as you and Laurence describe it hurts males too. If a male feels the need to escort a drunk female that he just met to her home, he shouldn't have to fear that she will go into that dangerous situation alone because she distrusts him. He also shouldn't have to fear being called a "creep" or a "stalker" when he follows her home anyway to make sure that nothing happens to her. If he did the same thing for another male, he would be a bro doing a favor for another bro. Most males probably aren't so noble and 99% would only follow a female home because they're creepy stalkers, but those few of us who are shouldn't have to face persecution just for wanting to do what feels like the right thing.

Again, please correct me if I'm wrong because I don't want to misrepresent what you're saying and I feel like I might be unconsciously twisting your words just to have something to disagree with. I'm being sincere here, though. I apologize if it sounds like I'm mocking anything, but I've read and reread this post several times before pressing Tab+Enter and I really think that this is the best way for me to get my point across without offending anyone.

 

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