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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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Yes, that was the original line and it convinced me at the time. There's just two or three issues for it:

No feminist I've ever followed has ever said "so-and-so didn't take those precautions so it's okay what happened". In fact: the argument is "'even if she didn't take precautions this should never have happened and even stating that she should have taken those precautions is now verboten".

There's no evidence that the woman in the Ansari story (or the stories it's proxy for) took extreme precautions - if she had it may have never gotten to the very sex she found so distressing. The story was also not one of being raped in an alley but a sexual experience that was unpleasant but probably legal by most standards. This matters, because there's the question of just what the heck we are supposed to do about it that doesn't exist for straight up rape. For crimes we go to the criminal system. For affronts to your sexual honor you typically go to your parents. How much of a role should the rest of society have here? There's no clear answer since half the time you're told society has no business in someone's bedroom...until something unfun happens.

Finally even if the original intent was good and was aimed at a world where women did take every reasonable precaution I'm not convinced that it can't still have the effect of promoting a certain mentality towards bad sex - i.e. it's not your responsibility, it's the fault of patriarchy or the avatar of patriarchy you had sex with- that is markedly different from the attitude inculcated in men, all at the same time we're insisting on female sexual agency being equal (or even identical) to that of males.

(As I said: I'm not even opposed to having "double" standards. But you have to bite the bullet)