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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29974 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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you can no longer accuse a man of rape if you willingly spend time with him alone.

We could achieve much the same effect by simply saying that a man has no legal defense against an allegation of rape if he chose to spend time with the woman alone, but I presume that would not please you in the same way.

The sexual revolution is over, you can’t fuck unlimited numbers of young groupies and not risk getting MeToo’d anymore. Oh well, it’s not an issue that affects 99.9% of not extremely rich or famous men and I don’t consider it a huge tragedy that this deleterious state of affairs is ending.

The historical status quo was that 'she consented' wasn't normally a defense against rape charges- seduction was still a crime. OTOH raping a prostitute wasn't usually a serious crime.

So we see, historically, societies in which spending time alone with women opened you up to legal liabilities, but in which not having had sex with a woman you'd spent time alone with was a defense against accusations and different women were afforded different levels of protection under the law, with virgins given the most protection and prostitutes the least. Fornication was de facto criminalized.

My rule is preferable because male sexuality is the aggressive risk-taking sexuality. This is evidenced by history and ape studies. Because male sexuality involves more risk-taking, your rule allows women to victimize men by continually inviting men alone who will take the risk. (Men are more likely to meet strange women than vice versa, more likely to swipe on dating apps, etc). My rule makes sense according to human nature: women take less risks and seek for fewer mates and are more cautious, so are less likely to be tricked into being victimized. Your rule gives women even more power, my rule equalizes the power of the genders by requiring the careful gender to expend due care. Ultimately what we want is less total sum victimization and stress. I think every sophisticated civilization from the Middle East to Europe and Asia abided by a rule like this: when determining rape they would consider the conduct of the woman.

you can’t fuck unlimited numbers of young groupies and not risk getting MeToo’d anymore

Well, inform the millions of years of biological equipment that cause the dominant man to be dominant that it needs to turn off its evolutionary engine. That’s the issue. The sexual instinct is stronger and older than the shame instinct. If you devise an unnatural standard you are going to find a lot of violations to the standard. Yelling and shaming a man for doing what a man is designed to do (procure consent of fertile woman, seduce) is ill-conceived. It just makes everyone more stressed. A simple rule can delete that stress efficiently without burdening the legal system.

Historically seduction of a woman was literally considered a crime, unless she was already the town bicycle. 'She consented' wasn't a defense. Pre-first sexual revolution courting, with the calling cards and chaperones, worked fine before the invention of the telephone.

'She consented' wasn't a defense.

And today, should "she consented" happens to be an effective defense in a similar case (as pointed out downthread, this is basically the Jian Ghomeshi case all over again), the laws will be changed so that it can't be considered a defense (as they were after his exoneration).

Seems like nothing changed after all.

Seduction laws were much more specific, no? They were applied in cases of misrepresentation or pregnancy usually

The victim had to have been moved “by some promise or artifice, . . . by his flattery or deception.” Likewise consent, or failure to resist, or evidence that “she had previously prostituted herself to the embraces of other men” could be a defense for the man

that “the person seduced must have been previously of chaste character — that she has yet preserved that priceless jewel that is the peculiar badge of the virtuous unmarried female.”

Lewd women, bawds and adventuresses were not welcome in courts, nor were prostitutes or immoral characters.

22 of 37 state laws requiring that the “prosecution must show either a promise of marriage or a feigned or pretended marriage.”

https://time.com/5776805/seduction-law-history/

I agree courting works fine.

So having sex with a virgin was only a crime if you misrepresented your intentions or buttered her up first? This seems like it covers most cases. Certainly most cases in which the man is later accused.

I think every sophisticated civilization from the Middle East to Europe and Asia abided by a rule like this

A rule that stated that a woman who happened to be alone with a man (say because her car broke down and someone stopped to help, or because she was the only customer in a store run by a man) had no recourse if she was raped by him? I’m not aware of that being a common policy in most trad civilizations.

In any case, in the example in the OP, the woman arrived at Gaiman’s house having been hired by his (essentially) wife as a babysitter, only to find he was the only person in the house. I do not sympathize with her and don’t think he’s guilty of a crime, but her mere presence in his home ought hardly to have given him the right to rape her.

Well, inform the millions of years of biological equipment that cause the dominant man to be dominant that it needs to turn off its evolutionary engine. That’s the issue. The sexual instinct is stronger and older than the shame instinct. If you devise an unnatural standard you are going to find a lot of violations to the standard.

And yet monogamy exists and functions, at least mostly and in many cases for many years. Sexual instincts can be tamed by civilization, that is arguably the point. Civilization is about tempering and overcoming the biological imperative, almost any kind of savagery and barbarism can be justified by your logic here. ‘Dominant men’ succeed every day in remaining faithful, it is no impossible expectation to believe they can hold themselves back from fucking groupies. I have seen it done.

“Happened to be alone” is an exceptional case, not a normative case. So such an exceptional case is unique and would need to be considered uniquely. The rule in traditional societies, from what I recall reading, is that no one would believe a woman regarding rape if the woman by her own volition went off to meet a man. I’m not sure what’s up with the specific nanny allegations. According to Twitter the alleged texted him “I think you need to give me a huge spanking very soon. I'm fucking desperate for my master." So there is more to the story than “happened to be alone”. It certainly throws a wench into the allegations.

monogamy exists and functions

It only ever functioned when there were strict rules about gender mingling. That’s my point. Does it function well today? I don’t know, divorce stats don’t look good. I know that kings were quite promiscuous in European history, because they had the power to override gender mingling rules.

Civilization is about tempering and overcoming the biological imperative

Hard disagree. But it’s interesting that we may have found a key point of divergence. I think civilization is about orienting, redirecting, confining and filtering our instincts. This is probably not very Christian of me, but I do not actually believe that you can overcome the sexual urge except with limited Herculean cognitive effort. The monks had to keep themselves away from women, after all, and yet even Peter Abelard fell for Heloise. The monks would fast and rejoice in their self-control but really their low caloric intake reduce the sexual drive.

Dominant men’ succeed every day in remaining faithful, it is no impossible expectation to believe they can hold themselves back from fucking groupies

Gates, Musk, Bezos, Trump… I really don’t know. I think the ones who succeed are the ones who eschew any context where temptation may arise.

It certainly throws a wench into the allegations.

Too great to ignore, lol

I'm glad you pointed it out; I might had missed it otherwise.

That could be the greatest pun or Freudian slip I've ever seen.

We had “esprit de corpse” crop up here some time ago.

We could achieve much the same effect by simply saying that a man has no legal defense against an allegation of rape if he chose to spend time with the woman alone, but I presume that would not please you in the same way.

It would please me fine, but it's notable that attempting to comply with such rules unilaterally has been argued, both by the media, by Blue Tribe social consensus, and even by prominent members of the Motte, to be icky deplorable sexism that should never be tolerated. The reaction to the Pence Rule both in the broader culture and among commenters here was another of the incidents that convinced me that peace between Reds and Blues is impossible.

Pence was attacked for the Pence rule because he was Red, not because of the rule. You could frame the Pence rule in a completely NYT-opinion-column appropriate way and I personally know many libs who follow and extol that rule in their own lives.

We could achieve much the same effect by simply saying that a man has no legal defense against an allegation of rape if he chose to spend time with the woman alone, but I presume that would not please you in the same way.

The presumption of innocence favors disqualifying accusations over disqualifying defenses.

Thankfully, nybbs, this pesky but minor issue—if it’s an issue at all—can be easily resolved by simply codifying into law the custom of eschewing presumption of innocence when the accuser or alleged victim is female and the accused is male with regard to any alleged crime in general, legal or social. Well, a white male at least.

I’ll go ahead and close the ticket.

It’s not disqualifying the defense, it’s invalidating it as conceptually possible and certainly relevant, much in the same way that ‘interference’ with a young woman was once socially unacceptable regardless of what she may or may not have thought about it.

It’s not disqualifying the defense, it’s invalidating it as conceptually possible and certainly relevant

Invalidating it is disqualifying it.

We don't live in that conservative world any more where young women (at least of sufficient social class) are put up on a pedestal for good or for ill. We're not getting it back. If it were to somehow come back it would have to come as a package, including young women being denied (by chaperones, by men, by other women, all endorsed by society) the opportunity to be alone with men. If you want young women to be protected as fragile flowers of feminity, they will also have to accept that the protection will often feel stifling and will absolutely deny them opportunities, freedom, and agency.

Alternatively, we could get what we seem to be getting, where young women demand it both ways and most people give it to them.

This only works until we get outbred and replaced by a more Gnon-compliant civilization, like the Muslims are taking over Europe.

What can't go on forever, won't. One way or the other, women will lose their freedom, because no civilization with free women can reproduce.

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