Your first statement makes it sound like you believe the woman in question to be acting irrationally. Given that rape is a thing that happens, and frequently, why shouldn't a woman treat a stranger as a Schrodinger's rapist? If you don't think it's irrational and merely never take it into account yourself... that's the whole point. That men don't usually think of such things.
Here's a story I always tell when crossing the street/schrodinger's rapist (a gross misuse of Schrodinger's thought experiment, but that's a physics rant, not a social one) comes up: One Halloween in college I was walking home, fairly inebriated (so not paying much attention to my surroundings), and overtook a young white woman walking home by herself. She apparently could hear me coming, because as I passed her, she said "Oh thank God you're white." Now... for 50% of your sociology 101 final, analyze and interpret her analysis of the threat I (or more accurately the sound of my footsteps) represented to her in the context of gender, race and the American Experience.
Is this thread for real? I've certainly never been accused of being an insensitive bastard, but I call bullshit on all of this feminist crap. Yeah, I said it. It's all a bunch of bullshit. I spent the entirety of my 20s trying to be everything I ever heard every feminist say they wanted men to be. You know how many girlfriends it got me? None. Not one. I was always in the friend zone every fucking time while they went out and banged the asshole who treated them like shit. How about just using common sense and treat people the way you would want to be treated.
Sorry but the idea that I have to cross the street because my mere presence makes women think I am going to rape them is bullshit. How far do you want to take this line of thinking? Should men just not be allowed outside at night? How about when I am in a grocery store at 3 am because I just got off work and there is a lone woman shopping? That means I should what, stop shopping because I "may or may not be a rapist"?
I always tell guys about the "Sensitive" route that it probably has a 2% success rate with women, if that. If you're a guy on the dating scene and you don't believe that, I'll tell you to go watch a chick flick with your date next time and then start sobbing noticeably during an emotional scene. What's gonna happen next? She's going to get a "headache" call it a night early, and as soon as you leave she's going to call her ex... (you know, the one who cheated on her more times than you've had sex in your entire life) and when he gets through the door she's going to ride him like she fucking stole him, then they'll smoke cigarettes in sweaty sheets afterwards and laugh about the pussy crying during Dear John. Women don't want a guy running their life, but they do need a guy to --on occasion-- forcibly twist their hair into a painful braid during hatesex.
Flat Rate is being a bit extreme, but I get his point. Listen, walking home in college at night, I started to take measures to be less "threatening" when I was passing girls later at night. It was mostly cause I was sick of being interpreted as menacing even though I wasnt. The fake phone calls, the hurrying up so I wouldnt catch up to them, girls blatantly stopping and staring at me till i passed (never got that one). I thought it was fucking ridiculous and unfair. I get that rape is scary, disgusting, and happens far too often. But the girl going home with a random dude from a bar is more at risk to be raped then the girl walking home on a well lit street in a sleepy college town, or down a busy street in Chicago. So tear me apart if you want, but I think it goes both ways. I can't get behind the idea that me, as a guy, has to go out of my way to be super deferential and accommodating to that girl walking home without acknowledging, at the same time, the reason I'm doing it is that she's mentally projecting men as guilty until proven innocent. Thats what I think Flat Rate and others are having problems with.
You're all missing the point(s). Women don't think that all men are rapists, you don't have to act overly sensitive. It's not all about specific actions, it's more about attitude and understanding. Understand that women live with fear of sexual violence, it's not personal. Be aware that we might find you threatening and enjoy the fact that you don't live with that same fear. Understand that women are often invalidated just for being women. Don't dismiss her experience because it's different from your own. Understand that society values men over women, and acknowledge your privilege. I don't expect you all to go to a Take Back the Night rally and enroll in a WGST class, but I hope you can at least KIND OF recognize what's going on in this thread.
Of couse this list was posted on the internet; Internet Feminism fucking sucks. Or, to be more specific, the internet ruins Feminism, pretty much like it ruins everything else. I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that if I want to have a reasonable discussion on Feminism, I'll have to have that conversation in real life.
Rough sex and crying and movies and feminism are neither mutually inclusive or exclusive. Being a feminist doesn't mean being sensitive and crying at movies, and it doesn't preclude somebody from having rough sex. If you want to cry at a fucking movie, cry at the movie. If she can't deal with that, why the fuck do you want her around? If you think being a feminist means having to be a spineless pussy, then there's a problem with the way you're defining it. Treating women like you want to be treated is a lot of it -- the rest is acknowledging that men and women often have different experiences in the world, and women mostly get the short end of the stick. You'd want somebody to be thoughtful and considerate of you, right? Maybe we interact with different women, but being able to empathize with other people has never precluded me getting laid. Or from being rough.
If it was this: How fucking ridiculous would that sound? Most of the points in that list are not about respecting women as humans and equals, they're about "MAN EVIL. SHAME."
Okay, I'm literally googling everything you are talking about but according to what I've just read about "active consent" it basically says that consent can't be given in advance of the act taking place in such a way as your describing and that basically each and every time you want to do something sexual or progress to something else you have to get consent again. I just think it's a bit unrealistic to be consciously concerned about consent in such a manner. Maybe you all are better multitaskers than me but I've kind of got a one track mind going in these situations. Not to say I wouldn't recognize if a chick was physically uncomfortable with the situation, but there is usually a natural progression of things that lead up to sex and I've never had a problem with simply reading signals in the past nor has any woman I've been with stated a clearer need for consent, so I just don't really understand where all this is coming from. I don't think there is an oppression measuring contest between trans people and non-trans people. I think that people who use terms like cisgendered are probably trying to start one though. As far as this whole oppression and privilege thing goes, yeah I fully accept the fact that I'm going to have a better time in life than someone like you described, but I'm not the one oppressing them and while I understand that what you are talking about is an injustice, I don't have the time or emotional capacity to shed a tear for every hardship everyone has gone through just because it was out of their hands. Pointing out how privileged everyone else is while crying oppression isn't a good way to get people on your side, even if its true. If you want to gain empathy you gotta give a little and understand that being a straight white man while advantageous in Western society doesn't mean you live in candyland where only good shit happens to you. I don't know about you, but I do this for all people. I'm fairly certain most people go into a heightened state of alert when they hear rapid footsteps approaching them at night or crowds them out on the sidewalk. As a guy you're probably not specifically afraid of getting raped, but you're going to be on edge that the distinct possibility that something bad might be about to happen to you. Pretty sure men are more often the victims of violent crime than women and the majority of sexual assaults are committed by someone that knows the victim, not a stranger, not that you shouldn't be cautious, I'm just saying it's way less likely. Basically what I'm getting at is everyone has their own shit to worry about, so rather than focusing on one group and going out of your way to accommodate them just be courteous to everyone.
Could you please expand on this for me? I find this insane to believe in the context of Western society, but I could very well accept it as true for somewhere like Saudi Arabia. Also, do you think that women have any privileges that men don't?
I feel the same way when I've been in places at night where its fairly remote on the way to my car or something. I've seen some sketch-ass homeless guys and weirdos everywhere cross my path or yell some schizo shit at me. This is Houston. What about the natural fight or flight gut instinct that people have? Why does it have it have to be dissected to death and then find someone(or class of people) to blame and try to force mental change? I'm not talking about general attitudes or equality, just this one aspect.
This might not be an issue for you in particular, but it is an issue for a lot of people. Hence the push for it. What I'm saying is that realistically, you don't have to request permission for every new sex act. It's not about hitting every point in some arbitrary checklist, it's about making sure everybody is comfortable and on the same page, and there are a lot ways to do that that aren't long-winded questions. Hell, even something as unsexy as "this ok?" when you clearly escalate things takes a second and can go a long way. Honestly though? Everybody who is being a smug asshole about this either misunderstands what it means or needs to step their fuck game up. Communicating with a partner isn't some sort of sensitive bullshit. Have you ever made a girl beg you to fuck her ass? Ever groaned "please don't stop" when she does that thing with her tongue? Congratulations, you're using active consent. Well, not pointing it out doesn't work very well either. You don't have to feel guilty all the time, but at least make the step of acknowledging it. There's a huge chasm between having to shed a tear for every hardship and thinking, "huh, the term tranny is really offensive to some people, and it's easy for me to not use it. Maybe I shouldn't say it anymore." There's a whole landscape between martyr and asshole.
Because we don't live in a world where being white inherently puts you in a position of physical disadvantage and danger, and the fact that someone is black makes it far easier for them to commit the crime in question. The mere fact that I'm white doesn't put me at constant and essentially unavoidable risk. A more apt analogy would that if you were a white man in a place where it is inherently unsafe to be a white man (say, an unfriendly region of Afghanistan), then wouldn't you feel justified in being perpetually vigilant, even though not every Afghani is likely to commit crime?
Although I'm not saying anything new the problem with this entire discussion is the same as the problem with every semi serious topic that comes up in any discussion. People start pushing to the extremes on both sides and then it becomes a shouting match and nothing gets done. For example, the second a topic like this comes up I know Pinkcup is going to come on here and have a long post about it. A lot of it will have valid points, and some of it will be excessive/PC/whatever you want to call it. People on the other side latch on to that and call her out on it and then it becomes antagonistic and in three pages Shegirl will come and lock the thread again. I'm not walking across the street when I'm passing a girl on the street at night, but I will be conscious of the fact that I can appear threatening if I'm walking quickly up behind a girl at night. My best friend is a small 105 pound defenseless girl who couldn't fight her way out of a paper bag, so every time she goes out and I'm not there I worry about her making it home alright and something happening to her. So I understand that if I can do something small for a girl walking home to keep her from stressing for that ten second then I'll do it. But, I just find walking across the street to be akin to "letting them win" in that we should attack the roots of the problem and that that response would just be excessive.
I'm a little confused here with the whole crossing the street scenario. Exactly why is it the man's duty to cross the street? I know that when I'm confronted by a possibly dangerous encounter and I don't wish to meet it head on, I remove myself from the situation by...I dunno....crossing to the other side of the street.
Given the patriarchal society we live in, and the ways in which this denies women agency, the mere existence of such a statement does not provide valid consent, especially when you have used language like "made" which implies a coercive power, and you are in fact supporting rape culture. Furthermore, the dichotomy of male=dominant, female=submissive you are enforcing contributes to the devaluation of women as a class, and your enforcing of your power through anal sex (the only purpose of which is to humiliate and subjugate women), the only conclusion that I can draw is that you are at best a virulent misogynist, and at worst an active rapist.