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 djones520 wrote:
Wouldn't be that hard Whembly. I could do it in a matter of minutes with MS Paint.

It's been years since I've attempted to photoshop or look for any forensic evidence... so, I'm out of my league.

I figured the picture of the page on a monitor seemed compelling.

*shrug*

Neverthanless... good find and I stand corrected. I'm still not a fan of the Brady Campaign.

One important thing that people often do not know:

Self-defense courses do not only teach you how to effectively knock someone out. A big part of them is prevention aka keeping your calm, realizing a dangerous situation, being present / dominant via body language etc.

Again: things EVERYONE can make use of. Zero downsides.

 easysauce wrote:
by that logic, since you never needed a condom to feel safe, neither should we...

Well, I am pretty sure the situations were you would need a condom are usually much more pleasant that those where you would need self-defense. Most people try to avoid situation where they need to use self-defense. But generally, they enjoy those where they use condoms.

If you dislike so much those situations where condoms are needed, stop getting into them.

Its pretty bad when one learns how to defend one self and proclaims in media its a bad thing

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
by that logic, since you never needed a condom to feel safe, neither should we...

Well, I am pretty sure the situations were you would need a condom are usually much more pleasant that those where you would need self-defense. Most people try to avoid situation where they need to use self-defense. But generally, they enjoy those where they use condoms.

If you dislike so much those situations where condoms are needed, stop getting into them.

so now victim blaming is ok? could easily rephrase your statement as "if you dont like getting raped, dont put yourself into situations where you might get raped."

lol... thats almost as crazy as you suggesting that reading supermarket prices involves calculus....

also, back in my day, we didnt have all these fancy forms of birth control like condoms, the pill, fake names, or pulling out.

 easysauce wrote:


also, back in my day, we didnt have all these fancy forms of birth control like [...] fake names, or pulling out.

...what.

I've heard good things about fake name birth control.

Then two years later on a date the girl you gave a fake name to bumps back into you and calls you by that fake name while on another date.

 easysauce wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
if you knee you date in the balls, that stops the date rape much better then doing nothing, letting him rape you, and then trying to prosecute him after the fact.

you can still knee him in the balls, run, avoid being raped, and still prosecute him for attempted rape.

Okay have you ever paid any attention to how cases related to rape go? How basically your suggestion would end up with your date (who you better hope isn't on the sportsball team) slandering you to heaven and back while every aspect of your private life is combed over to find "proof" of how horrible you are and you get utterly socially ostracised and then in the end there's a high chance nothing will happen to him anyway?

This is why focusing on women's behaviour is bad, because there is so much wrong with how our society views and deals with sexual assault that it just cannot be solved by any action we can take. The only way to make a significant difference to it is to change the culture around it. We can take all the self defense classes we want, but they won't solve the problem because there are other reasons that "punch him in the balls" do not work.

Come on. You think avoiding rape is so simple and that for some reason we won't follow this one simple step, punching him in the balls, that would solve all sexual assault?

 Grey Templar wrote:

You are only going to get attacked if the attacker thinks he can overpower you. if you quickly show that is not the case the bulk of the time they'll turn tail and run(because criminals are almost exclusively cowards) and look for easier prey.

Except most sexual assault is not committed by men jumping out of bushes at night. Most sexual assault is committed by friends, acquaintances, lovers. And I don't mean friends, acquaintances or lovers jumping out of bushes at night, either.

for obvious reasons, what you are saying is offensive, judgmental, wrong, and a plethora of negative stuff that I wont list here.

Bullgak. You don't get to call someone offensive, judgemental and wrong and then not back your argument up. That's not even Arguments 101, that's the introductory page. Put up or stuff it, as the saying goes.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
HiveFleetPlastic, I do not want to be rude or anything, but since you seem to be much more familiar with these issues than I am, maybe you could describe an actual rape/sexual assault scenario, to show more clearly how the mechanics of rape work and how self-defense will not serve ?
I have read about them and got convinced, but I think I have forgotten a bit since .

You can read about them online if you want. There are an awful lot of them, because there are an awful lot of sexual assaults and a lot of people find sharing them helps. One common thread is they are not clearly delineated - like I said, it's usually not strangers jumping out of bushes, it's people you know in a familiar context and everything is fine until suddenly it isn't. The other thing is - rapists don't fit any particular demographic group. They aren't this particular category of sub-human monster. They're people. I wanted to pick on:

 LuciusAR wrote:

Critics said we ought better to teach men not to commit sex crimes.

This is a common thing I've been reading recently whenever anyone advises vigilance or practical advice to avoid being a victim of sexual assault. I think feminists seems to think this is some form of victim blaming and that the emphasis should be on men not to rape as opposed to women to tape steps avoid being raped. If you apply the same logic to any other crime you really see how daft it is. Telling people to lock their cars and not flash their valuables in rough areas is seen as perfectly sensible advice and is never called victim blaming.

Furthermore this idea that men 'ought better to teach men not to commit sex crimes' an incredibly naive way of looking at things. Do people really think that that rapists are simply poorly educated and if only someone had told them that it was wrong to rape then they wouldn't?

99% of men know not to rape wouldn't dream of doing so and the other 1% don't care and won't listen. No amount of well meaning lessons on consent will deter them. With that in mind a certain degree of vigilance is vital and no this is not blaming the victim.

~8.8% of college men admit in surveys to having committed rape. That's just the ones who admit it, and sexual assault is a broader term than rape. Rapists are not inhuman monsters. They're people like you.

So if I'm in college and I go to a party (and this is a nice party full of reputable students) and I have a bit to drink and I feel nice and a friend comes up and sits next to me and we talk a little, and he's sitting close next to me but we're friends so that's okay, and then he puts his arm around me in a hug and that's sweet and I'm smiling and feeling nice and not really noticing his arm is up against my breasts and then his hand goes down my pants, I'm wondering at what stage in this process do I punch him in the balls and how doing so rewinds time to make it all not have happened (and how I protect myself from retaliation by him afterwards, like when he goes around and tells everyone what a bitch I am, including possibly making up a story about how I led him on and who knows what else).

I feel creeped out even writing that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This thread is a fantastic example of what people were talking about when they criticised the comment, because all this nonsense privileges a view of sexual assault that has no basis in reality. Nobody is against women learning to be black belts. People are against the unrealistic magical view of sexual assault where rape isn't committed by people, it's committed by a special class of monster who leap at you from the bushes or otherwise attack you and if you just fight back it's all solved.

Part of improving the culture is understanding reality, and the cultural understanding of sexual assault is way out of line with that. That's why it's important to actually understand it instead of trotting out tired old nonsense that just reinforces the existing, flawed, cultural understanding.

Your naivite is shocking, to be fair, and what's worse is that terrrible victimizing yourself constantly.

First of all, use appropriate data. Using a study from 1998 (!) is just bad researching. Here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/sexual_assault_report_1-21-14.pdf

Secondly: in your naivite, you still don't understand what proper self-defense means - as I explained above. A huge problem most of the time is intoxication the victim, be it voluntarily or not. You gotta raise awareness for that. Where? Self-defense.

Thirdly: stop victimizing yourself. I see this so often and it's shocking. In every discussion, so many women immediately go like "Society is so bad, I can't do anything!". They, they, they. The only guilty one in an actual situation is the person committing rape. Period. Does our current culture fuel sexual assaults? Yes. With internet and porn everywhere, including nastier stuff, and higher expectations, stress level etc., sexual assaults have become a bigger problem. Can you change that? Good luck.

You should try to raise your voice. Take political action. But always, always start with yourself and safe yourself. Then use that positive experience and empower others.

Fourth: The example you described is neither rape nor attempted rape, but sexual harassment.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Your naivite is shocking, to be fair, and what's worse is that terrrible victimizing yourself constantly.

First of all, use appropriate data. Using a study from 1998 (!) is just bad researching. Here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/sexual_assault_report_1-21-14.pdf

Secondly: in your naivite, you still don't understand what proper self-defense means - as I explained above. A huge problem most of the time is intoxication the victim, be it voluntarily or not. You gotta raise awareness for that. Where? Self-defense.

Thirdly: stop victimizing yourself. I see this so often and it's shocking. In every discussion, so many women immediately go like "Society is so bad, I can't do anything!". They, they, they. The only guilty one in an actual situation is the person committing rape. Period. Does our current culture fuel sexual assaults? Yes. With internet and porn everywhere, including nastier stuff, and higher expectations, stress level etc., sexual assaults have become a bigger problem. Can you change that? Good luck.

You should try to raise your voice. Take political action. But always, always start with yourself and safe yourself. Then use that positive experience and empower others.

Fourth: The example you described is neither rape nor attempted rape, but sexual harassment.

No... that is sexual assault.

Correct, my bad, lost in translation :/

 djones520 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

Fourth: The example you described is neither rape nor attempted rape, but sexual harassment.

No... that is sexual assault.

Agreed... Assault in talking about sexual assault is any unwanted physical contact (doesn't have to be violent at all) harassment is anything not physical (verbal comments, hand gestures, etc)

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Bullgak. You don't get to call someone offensive, judgemental and wrong and then not back your argument up. That's not even Arguments 101, that's the introductory page. Put up or stuff it, as the saying goes.

As opposed to you cutting out the part of the quote where I do just that, then complain that its no longer there?

Hive fleet just told a rape victim in his quote that I called offensive, namely myself, that they know nothing about rape or the legal process around it and proceeded to describe how the legal system treats date rape as a joke. While ignoring the fact that I was just talking about how the legal system treats date rape as a total joke... but i guess since my example was of a man it was ignored just as such cases are ignored in the real legal system. They dont even get treated like a joke, because they dont even get treated as anything. For what its worth, I think hive fleet either didnt read or read too fast through my posts, so Id give him the benifit of the doubt and assume it wasnt his intent to offend me, none the less, it was offensive to me.

I fully have admitted in this thread that most rapes are in fact not the scary guy in the bushes type, and I and others have very calmly explained that "self defense" is more then just fighting and violence... it is situational awareness and making common sense choices to mitigate your risk.

It would seem to some that even suggesting there are ways to mitigate rape, beyond telling men not to rape women (specifically men too), is to support rape culture.

Some of us just dont see it as black and white as that, and think you need to take a very multipronged avenue towards a solution.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Your naivite is shocking, to be fair, and what's worse is that terrrible victimizing yourself constantly.

First of all, use appropriate data. Using a study from 1998 (!) is just bad researching. Here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/sexual_assault_report_1-21-14.pdf

Sorry, I'm not sure what I'm meant to be seeing here. That cites a 7% rate for college men reporting that they had attempted or committed rape. It also puts the rate of sexual assault around the same as the news story in the OP.

Doesn't seem to be anything there suggesting women need to punch people in the balls to avoid rape, though. I did enjoy this part:

White House Document wrote:And, of course, we must – and can – continue to change our nation’s attitudes about these crimes. Sexual assault is pervasive because our culture still allows it to persist. According to the experts, violence prevention can’t just focus on the perpetrators and the survivors. It has to involve everyone. And in order to put an end to this violence, we as a nation must see it for what it is: a crime. Not a misunderstanding, not a private matter, not anyone’s right or any woman’s fault. And bystanders must be taught and emboldened to step in to stop it.

I like this part of your post though:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The only guilty one in an actual situation is the person committing rape. Period. Does our current culture fuel sexual assaults? Yes. With internet and porn everywhere, including nastier stuff, and higher expectations, stress level etc., sexual assaults have become a bigger problem. Can you change that? Good luck.

You should try to raise your voice. Take political action. But always, always start with yourself and safe yourself. Then use that positive experience and empower others.

Good stuff. I think we have solid agreement here to the extent that I'm not sure why you seem to think you're disagreeing with me! In fact, raising my voice is what I'm doing right now.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Fourth: The example you described is neither rape nor attempted rape, but sexual harassment.

Well, it depends on exactly what his hand is doing. Where I live, digital penetration without consent is classified as rape. In any event, the question that created this topic was on "sexual assault" specifically, so my example was of sexual assault and not intended to necessarily be an example of rape.

In the case of the majority of sexual assaults I think that having access to pressure points and other disabling attacks would be a good idea. I'm not saying it should be the only solution but having the ability to get the friend/lover ect partially disabled or shock them might go somewhat to getting someone out of a terrible situation.

I personally think self defence training is a good idea for anyone. To me it is kind of non-sensical to think that instead of providing possible help now (through self defence) to harp on instead about some change that will take generations to take effect, like that will help anyone now. STopping the date rape side of sexual assault will take a lot of time and is very complicated and pervasive. I'm not sure "teaching men not to rape" being so broad will help tackle the issue at hand.

Hearing things like women should be able to walk alone at night always leads me to think that when I'm walking alone at night I am constantly evaluating others for potential threats (only when in a deserted place) and since I am in the highest risk group for physical assault that this is a reasonable and cautious thing to do.
I have no idea why someone is being pilloried for suggesting that others do likewise to protect themselves.

BTW is secual assault when someone religious bashes an athiest?

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think its basically criticising her for not saying we need to change guys who are likely to commit rape.

Frankly of the 2 solutions hers seems better.

Trying both would actually be better than trying to make one work.

Both sides of this issue are being very silly. The people claiming to be outraged at her comment are being silly in pretending her comment was in any way exclusive, that her comment about promoting self defence meant that nothing else could be done. And the people claiming that she was right are just as silly, relying on this fantasy idea of rape as a man physically forcing himself on a woman, holding her down while she, lacking any self-defense course, is helpless to stop him. But most rape is built on social pressure and vague implications of danger, thinking that black belt skills are a useful response is just silly.

This is just two sides wanting to argue and doing so on the silliest terms possible. And what gets left behind is a real understanding of what rape is and how it can be prevented.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Both the Brady campaign and Moms Demand Action (two prominent Left Wing organizations) believe it is better to be raped than to defend yourself. I don't see how repeating what they say publicly is offensive. In Australia and Japan they even have knife control, like gun control. Limiting the means to defend oneself is the same as limiting the right. If I misunderstood their position then they should have made it clearer.

That ad is a smear made up by liars to con people like you.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/bradyad.asp

You lapped it up, believed and spread it across the internet, because despite how ridiculous it is you wanted to believe that your political opponents were awful. It's made you look like an idiot, repeating a ridiculous thing.

Any chance it'll cause you to think twice about the people that you've listened to, that served you up such nonsense? Any chance at all?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
I remember that...

Classic he said/she said thing...

No, it isn't. I'm no fan of the Brady campaign and their crusade for dumber and dumber gun laws, but the bs is obvious.

That'd be one hell of a photoshop to fake the image... unless someone faked that website. Which is possible.

Take the facebook page, copy the fake image over some real image. Easy.

 whembly wrote:
It's been years since I've attempted to photoshop or look for any forensic evidence... so, I'm out of my league.

I figured the picture of the page on a monitor seemed compelling.

When you photoshop an image, you then have it on a monitor, that you can take a picture of.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
It's been years since I've attempted to photoshop or look for any forensic evidence... so, I'm out of my league.

I figured the picture of the page on a monitor seemed compelling.

When you photoshop an image, you then have it on a monitor, that you can take a picture of.

Well...

I feel like an idjit.

Cheers!

 whembly wrote:
Well...

I feel like an idjit.

Cheers!

That's what I'm here for

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It is a lot harder to get convicted of rape than many other crimes, due to the way society treats it, or rather tends to treat the victim as complicit and partly responsible.

I don't think this is true at all. This idea that rape isn't take seriously by society and that this is reflected in conviction rates seems to me to be a strawman.

What is true however is that rape is an extremely difficult crime to prosecute as is often leaves no evidence that a crime has even occurred, let alone whether the accused is the actual guilty party. How exactly can a successful prosecution be brought in such circumstances? The only solutions offered seem to be either lowering the standard of evidence required or even worse a reversal of the burden of proof, both of which are abhorrent suggestions.

I don't know about the US but in the UK the rate of convictions for cases that make it to court is well over 50%, which indicates that when appropriate evidence is present the system will deliver justice.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

Except most sexual assault is not committed by men jumping out of bushes at night. Most sexual assault is committed by friends, acquaintances, lovers. And I don't mean friends, acquaintances or lovers jumping out of bushes at night, either.

If only self-defense worked against anything else but people jumping out of bushes. Damn it!

Don't forget dropping from trees. There are almost no montage training scenes in movies dealing with people (or worse, Killer Drop Bears) dropping from the trees.
Watch the Skies!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

also, back in my day, we didnt have all these fancy forms of birth control like condoms, the pill, fake names, or pulling out.

Back in my day, thats what the aforementioned cave bears were for.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Your naivite is shocking, to be fair, and what's worse is that terrrible victimizing yourself constantly.

What the hell are you talking about? She is not victimizing herself, she is explaining the mechanisms of sexual assault and how self-defense methods are usually not helpful against them.

 Sigvatr wrote:
First of all, use appropriate data. Using a study from 1998 (!) is just bad researching. Here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/sexual_assault_report_1-21-14.pdf

That is nitpicking and bickering that ignore the fact your “appropriate data” will back off what she says just as well.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Thirdly: stop victimizing yourself. I see this so often and it's shocking. In every discussion, so many women immediately go like "Society is so bad, I can't do anything!".

Where did she say that? I mean, I have seen what can be mocked as “Society is bad”, but I have not seen “I cannot do anything”. Certainly she did say that being a black belt would not help in most situations. She did not, however, say that there is nothing else she could do. Or I have missed it.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Fourth: The example you described is neither rape nor attempted rape, but sexual harassment.

Yet more nitpicking, while the thread is about sexual assault anyway.

 easysauce wrote:
lol... thats almost as crazy as you suggesting that reading supermarket prices involves calculus....

You want to buy one liter of whatever. You can either buy cans of 20cl, or cans of 25cl. How do you get one liter? And should you rather take 20cl cans or 25cl cans to pay less?
That is (pretty basic) calculus.

 easysauce wrote:
so now victim blaming is ok?

Wait, what?

 easysauce wrote:
could easily rephrase your statement as "if you dont like getting raped, dont put yourself into situations where you might get raped."

That would not be rephrasing, that would be saying entirely different. Most people use condoms to protect themselves in consensual sexual relationships to which they agreed willfully. Whereas people never willfully decide to get assaulted. Hence why the problem of whether or not people should feel the need for self-defense courses or guns in order to feel safe is very, very different from the problem of whether people should feel the need for condoms to be safe.

But then again, I am not sure your statement was meant as an argument anyway. Considering the (truncated) quote from me in your signature, I would not be surprised if that was meant as some kind of personal attack or something . A very bad one, by the way. It is not working.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Your naivite is shocking, to be fair, and what's worse is that terrrible victimizing yourself constantly.

First of all, use appropriate data. Using a study from 1998 (!) is just bad researching. Here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/sexual_assault_report_1-21-14.pdf

Sorry, I'm not sure what I'm meant to be seeing here. That cites a 7% rate for college men reporting that they had attempted or committed rape. It also puts the rate of sexual assault around the same as the news story in the OP.

I wasn't trying to rebutt your argument

In the end, I think we're on the very same side of the line as, I assume, both of us think that sexual harassment / assaults / rape is an ever-increasing problem that is in dire need of more attention and appropriate responses. My point was merely that you should always try to use official and current data as it makes up for a strong basis of argumentation. Using studies of 1998, for example, is hardly relevant anymore because the context of growing up has changed (for the worse).

Good stuff. I think we have solid agreement here to the extent that I'm not sure why you seem to think you're disagreeing with me! In fact, raising my voice is what I'm doing right now.

Yep I highly appreciate you taking action, as long as it means really taking action - just speaking out on it on an internet forum is nothing.

I agree with you on a general point, my view is just that every approach should start on the smallest level, yourself, and then go on and raise the scale. I get an immensely positive feedback from my workshops (that I do not charge any money for btw . Empowerment and raising awareness for dangerous situations is an extremely important part of self-defense.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

What the hell are you talking about? She is not victimizing herself, she is explaining the mechanisms of sexual assault and how self-defense methods are usually not helpful against them.

Incorrect. Everytime you blame something "on the society" or "the culture", you victimize yourself as you on your own cannot do anything against them on your own.

That is nitpicking and bickering that ignore the fact your “appropriate data” will back off what she says just as well.

Incorrect. This isn't nitpicking, this is showing how proper argumentation works. As detailed above.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Incorrect. Everytime you blame something "on the society" or "the culture", you victimize yourself as you on your own cannot do anything against them on your own.

What do you mean? Do you not agree that sometime problems actually do come from society? And how does saying so imply you cannot do anything against them on your own?
For instance, during the civic right movement, did racism not come from society, and did those that denounced it not actually did things against it nonetheless?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
lol... thats almost as crazy as you suggesting that reading supermarket prices involves calculus....

You want to buy one liter of whatever. You can either buy cans of 20cl, or cans of 25cl. How do you get one liter? And should you rather take 20cl cans or 25cl cans to pay less?
That is (pretty basic) calculus.

I know English isn't your first language, so I'm not going to bust your balls over this, but that's not the kind of calculus he's talking about. Easysauce is also 100% correct. The majority of students will never, ever need to know calculus. That doesn't mean it isn't beneficial for them to learn it, but most of them will never need it.

This might help clarify things a bit.

So, did I mixed calculus and calculations? Both use the same word, calcul, in French.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
So, did I mixed calculus and calculations? Both use the same word, calcul, in French.

Really? That seems...fraught with danger. Getting Math A students (which over here is a math subject based around the simplest of maths you can find) applying for Math C subjects (the more interesting kind of maths ) because they are both called maths, would totally happen. At least at my school it would have.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
So, did I mixed calculus and calculations? Both use the same word, calcul, in French.

Which itself is Latin. Hail our fearless leader.