#PZMyers and others: More straw-manning at #FTB in the name of feminism (updated)

I don't know if this is from two of her actual Tweets or not;
that said, there are other pictures, allegedly of Ms. Watson,
badly drunk, exactly fitting this problem.

Updated, Aug. 9, 2014. Please see very good video from Carol Tavris at this year's version of The Amazing meeting, about one-third of the way down.

Updated, Feb. 9, 2015: Total conviction rate on the actual rape charge of people charged with rape is 53 percent. Conviction on any charge is 68 percent. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Does it not make simple sense that women should watch how much they drink in certain social situations they know can become sexually supercharged? Especially, say, at college?

Maybe to most people, but not to all.

At Slate, Emily Yoffe absolutely nails this issue of how young women need to take responsibility and stop getting so drunk in the first place, as part of reducing sexual assault.

And, before Gnus and Atheism Plusers flame me (or others, or Yoffe) here, on Twitter, or elsewhere, she has all the disclaimers about not blaming the victim, etc. She notes what I've said in other links, namely that:

1. Women metabolize alcohol differently and get drunk faster than men;
2. College sexual assaults usually aren't by strangers, but fellow students;

And beyond that to note:

1. Yes means yes and no means no aside, there's no bright line on how drunk is too drunk to influence consent;
2. A rape reported by someone who was drunk is harder to prosecute, for obvious memory reasons;
3. Rohypnol or other "spiking" of drinks isn't the problem; it's women getting this drunk, whether encouraged by a predatory male, as part of a party where both men and women drink to the point of loss of control, or a bit of both.

So, click the link and read, please.

Update, Aug. 9, 2014: And, then, watch this video.



Start at about the 12-minute mark, where a college woman has drunk but consensual sex with a man. She then goes back to her place, texts him to ask if he has a condom, then goes back and has more sex, despite attempts of friends to stop her. She then "cried wolf" the next day claiming lack of memory. The college eventually took no action, saying, in essence, she was too drunk to even know at the time whether or not she was in a state of being able to consent, and the man was too drunk to know that she was that drunk. Tavris goes on to note that the type of feminism that, even in the light of text messages, undercut the claim of "I couldn't help stop drinking," is not the type of feminism she believes in.  End update.

Put, please be considerate to the poor, Atheism Plus nth-wave feminists, who are full of anti-feminist self-disempowering bullshit.  I didn't know that Atheism Plus women were so physically or mentally weak. Apparently, they're incapable of refraining from drinking more alcohol if some man pours it in a glass.

And, as expected, a possible nth-wave feminist has now done the flaming, on Talking Points Memo (ugh), with me saying she's a possible nth-wave feminist by a look at her blog. Or that she writes that everyday gender inequality could cause the next war. Or, the name of that just-linked URL.

And, P.Z. Myers, to whom I refuse to link, has upped the ante on the straw-manning.

Let me present two analogies to you.

1. Somebody writes a column or blog post that advises rich people not to drive Aston Martins into ghettos. Obvious reasons. Author makes multiple statements that this isn't blaming rich people for when they're carjacked, etc. Makes clear that the criminals are responsible for their criminal behavior. But, the author still advises rich people with Aston Martins to use a little common sense. It's called harm reduction.

2. Another person writes a column or blog post that advises women on college campuses not to get so drunk that they're unsure as to whether or not they've given sexual consent, unsure as to how drunk they were when they gave sexual consent, etc. The author makes clear that the person who commits a sexual assault on such a woman (whether the assaultee is a straight male or a gay female — more on that in a minute) is the criminal. The author makes clear that he or she is not blaming the victim.

In both cases, we're talking about sensible harm reduction.

Many people likely would simply nod their heads at No. 1. Yet, No. 2 is already getting straw-manned by the likes of P.Z. Myers (and others). It will likely be strawmanned even more, soon enough, by others at Freethought Blogs.

Yes, I know analogies aren't perfect. But, if one gets past a fixation on richness (or even more on the idea of the rich having "privilege," which alone means Gnu Atheists won't accept this analogy), I think this is a pretty good one.

There are plenty of others that could be spun out, anyway. Like the harm reduction of locking your doors (car or residence). Carrying insurance. Etc.

But, at the Gnu Atheist Asylum, or elsewhere in the Atheism Plus madhouse, where everybody else has "privilege" but the cadres and their leaders don't, such analogies will never gain acceptance.

It's also no wonder P.Z. has "divorced himself" from professional skepticism. He never practices it.

And, speaking of, per past posts by two bloggers at Freethought Blogs:

One more thing, contra the Greta Christinas and Stephanie Zvans at the asylum, women also sexually assault each other. As do men. As do women on men. But, that will never be discussed by either of them.

Moving beyond this, there is also a difference between "blaming the victim" and pointing out that someone may be, in part, "playing the victim." Psychological martyrdom is probably less a lost art than ever in the world of social media.

Let's call it reverse "privilege." Which, like "reverse racism," is ultimately the word it reverses.

Reporting rape to the police is still a somewhat "fraught" thing, though, it's probably less fraught for a woman who was sober and sexually assaulted by a stranger than it is a college-age woman who hit a frat party at college or a friends and friends of friends party out in the country with the explicit purpose of getting drunk and possibly having sex, then changing her mind, and getting sexually assaulted by someone drunk, whether or not the victim was drunk also, half-drunk or whatever.

But, it's less "fraught" than it used to be. Police departments have more female officers than decades past, for one thing. Both male and female officers have at least a modicum of training in tact and sensitivity, compared to years past, and more training in collection of evidence, too. And, while there are horror stories still out there, they do, in general, take rape more seriously than in the past, and pursue cases more aggressively.

Ditto on all of the above for prosecutors.

So, the nth-wave feminists and social justice warriors do nobody a favor by relying on largely (yes, not totally) outmoded images to tell women not to pursue rape cases. I've seen just that advice more than once at Freethought Blogs. And, per a comment thread on Facebook, it may be that there's the martyr card at play here, too.

It's sad. Especially when all of this gets used as gasoline to the matches of men's rights advocates.

Again, per Yoffe's original, I'm not blaming the victim here, on men's rights extremists going nuts. They would anyway. However, there is the parallel issue. And, just like Gnu Atheists seem to kind of like Christian fundamentalists, to the point of finding them as their Tar Baby, I suspect the nth-wave feminists kind of like men's rights extremists in the same way.

That, too, is sad.

Beyond that, there's something that's ironic more than sad, though it has a bit of that. Part of the drunken frat-house culture, and especially the degree women get involved, seems in part due to repressed female sexuality, sexual stigma, and still not being fully detached from sexual stereotypes. For the women who straw-man this issue, play the martyr card, etc., it's definitely more ironic than sad, though. These aren't young Christians, whether at Christian or secular college, who . These are the Atheism Plusers, who have proclaimed they want to take the social crusade angle of Gnu Atheism even further, and to the degree sexuality stigma comes from Christian background, as may ("privilege" drivel aside) chauvinism, patriarchy, whatnot, shouldn't the empowerment of Plusism have them moving beyond this?

That said, I don't think this is always about sexual repression. At the risk of mansplaining, in some cases, such as Ms. Watson, there's probably other issues. With some minority percentage of women, I believe there's psychological gamesmanship afoot. Now, as to what drives such gamesmanship, it's probably pretty individualized.

Add to the straw-manning simple trolling by Fauxthoughter Jason Thibeaualt.

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And, although the drinking didn't go too far, and it wasn't a frat-house type scene, alcohol (as well as abuse of standing as a boss), appears to have played some role in the stunning (but not quite shocking) story of problems of former Scientific American blogging chief Bora Zivkovic. And here, it's even clearer there are other dynamics at play among the nth-wave feminist crowd et al. Zvan rightfully notes, in the motorboat wake of this, that harassment can be done by women, too (I'm shocked to hear that out of her mouth) but, then goes on to do what is arguably "slut shaming." She'd surely call it that if someone else did it. It's also possibly a form of online bullying to keep non nth-ers in line.

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Once again, college people, too much drinking, some sort of sexual activity, problematic memory, and a rape claim that didn't play out, at least against the person in the spotlight. Once again, social justice warriors, maybe start your focus on ... alcohol? And, as for motive? SJW folks, this one's clear on at least a possible motive. Monetary payout from a presumed first-round NFL draft pick.