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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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The best solution to solve the social neuroticism: you can no longer accuse a man of rape if you willingly spend time with him alone.

Your solution seems utterly incompatible with the way of life of most societies.

Perhaps you think a strong gender segregation like traditional Islam has would be enough to solve the scenario of your uncontrollable men, but it is not.

Even in traditional Islamic countries, I think there is a presumption that men can constrain themselves from rape in some contexts. A man might trust his brother to chaperone his wife without raping her, or his son to chaperone his daughter.

Of course, if we were to excuse rapes of women in voluntary 1-vs-1 situations because real men don't have self-control, why should we stop there? What about chance encounters, they might not be willing, but at least negligent? If we blame women for getting into situations where they are get violently overpowered, should we not also blame them for entrusting themselves to a chaperone who gets overpowered by some rapist? And if you can't trust one man not to rape one woman, why should you be able to trust n men to not coordinate to rape k women?

Also why should only heterosexual rapists get a pass when gay men can get just as horny? The logical conclusion would be that in any gathering, whatever subset of people can violently overpower the others gets to do as they please.

Luckily, your 'vigorous men' who are so high-T that they can not control their impulse to rape whenever a plausible opportunity arises are exceedingly rare today. Even in ancient societies, where being rapey was an adaptive trait, there was doubtlessly a selection for men who were might rape enemy civilians in wartime or slaves, but had enough restraint to not rape their chieftains daughter or a temple virgin.

Today, millions of women and men encounter each other as strangers 1-vs-1 in taxis, while jogging and in countless other settings many million times a day. Almost none of these encounters lead to rape. Empirically, this puts sharp limits on the prevalence of your 'vigorous men' who would rape at every opportunity in the wider world, outside of monasteries and prisons.

Men can resist raping. A woman’s discomfort or scream or admonition or disgust (or any other clear biological signal of disinterest) is an immediate turn off to a normal human male. What is unlikely is if they can resist seducing, which can become rape at the whim of a woman because most seduction does not involve affirmative consent. My rule doesn’t give men a pass to rape; after all, a lot of men are trustworthy. But it establishes a right to seduce (attempt), and it requires women to check who they spend time with alone. We can call it the “Baby it’s cold outside” law. Or the “black and white” law, a play on the fact that so many old black and white movies illustrate seduction with zero consent. The important thing is that it deletes immediately this whole neurotic grey area where a man is either icky or a rapist for seducing a woman in a context with no evidence. It does this by putting the responsibility on women to consider who they spend time with alone.

A woman’s bother-in-law is not considered eligible mahram in traditional Islam, so a woman cannot spend time alone with her husband’s brother. (I must once again sincerely ask: is Islam right about women?)

For chance public encounters, yeah, people don’t even assume their wives and girlfriends outside, so that’s obviously not an issue.

Okay, this seems more reasonable.

But it is also not very different from how rape laws used to work in western society.

Basically, the central rape case (not involving drugs) would be "he said, she said". Because criminal law operates on the principle "in dubio pro reo", the testimony of the victim is probably not to secure a conviction on its own. Audio or video evidence, third party testimony or physical marks of a struggle can all tip that balance, of course.

Every day, countless men try to seduce women. Most of the time, the woman in question makes it clear that they are not interested, escalating appropriately until he gets the message. Sometimes, she fails to do so, and sometimes he does not take no for an answer, which are the cases where rape cases stem from. And sometimes she might actually consent.

Unlike traditional Islam, I have no problem with (explicitly or otherwise) consenting adults having sex. Nor do I model the median adult woman as being a sex-crazed maniac who loses all her agency and will drop her pants the moment some stranger touches her arm.

As a straight guy, the thought "what if some gay person manages to seduce me and assfucks me, I better keep away from seductive (but non-rapey) gay men just to be sure" had not even occurred to me, because I am sure I would make my displeasure known at any attempt.

Sometimes, some people might pre-commit to not undertake some action, and intentionally avoid situations which would weaken their committment. If you want to stay sober, it is probably not a good idea to go to a party with a lot of booze. If you want not to have sex with a person X to whom you are mutually attracted, it is probably not a good idea to visit them to watch a romantic comedy. But again, the 'bad' outcome you want to avoid is a matter of personal preference, not criminal law.

Even in traditional Islamic countries, I think there is a presumption that men can constrain themselves from rape in some contexts. A man might trust his brother to chaperone his wife without raping her, or his son to chaperone his daughter.

In Islam, you are only supposed to trust her immediate blood-relations; a woman's father, brothers, and sons can all be safely assumed to not want to fuck her, nor is she likely to want to fuck them. Brothers-in-law are not included, for good reason; there is no biological reason stopping your brother from having sex with your wife, so you don't even give them the chance. Cousins are right out, given that they are permissible marriage partners.