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I think you're wrong here actually. I think you're the one doing typical minding, and most men are actually like this. Some are like you and me, who find that behavior repugnant, but then... Africa. And India. And and and.
I think this is another case of fish in the post-Christian sea having no idea about water.
I linked this down-thread but there's notes about each of the convicted rapists in this case here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelicot_rape_case#Convicted
Do you see a pattern?
I'll admit some of these fit some stereotypes.
Nizar Hamida
Mohamed Rafaa
Hassan Ouamou
But to me it's not that solid a pattern. Plenty of these people have proper French sounding names and like they'd be familiar with Christianity.
The most solid theme for me is: losers and imbeciles with a splash of psychopathy.
I also noticed the overrepresentation of Arab names among the perpetrators.
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I'm skeptical that Christianity (or Western civilization) is the sole difference, though I know this is a popular theory (with Christians). Yes, large parts of the third world are rapacious hellholes, but there are ancient and contemporary non-Christian societies that do not seem to have been such.
I'd like to draw the distinction between states with enough capacity (and will) to deter rape by threat of violent reprisal, and peoples who believe that rape is implicitly morally wrong regardless of circumstance.
As far as I can tell this is a uniquely Christian innovation. Even the notion that a woman should have the final veto in whether she gets married seems to be Christian; c.f. the custom of the priest asking her if 'she does'.
Jewish legal codes speak for themselves and Islam is cool with sex slaves taken in wartime. Pagans understood rape as a normal reward for conquering armies and that higher class men could naturally enough have their way with lower class women, not to mention slaves.
Really, the notion that rape is wrong is fairly peculiar historically.
Same with murdering one's own infant children but that's another topic.
Could you expand on this? I'm not familiar.
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I mean, the Chinese have evidence of this in writing even in pre-Imperial history; 墨子 discusses punishments for rape during the Warring States period, and various annals including 春秋左傳 and 詩經 describe rape in a decidedly disapproving manner. I'm sure other cultures would
This is, of course, in the background of a very different philosophical culture and climate than Christian Europe. For one, the Christian idea of sin is probably actually quite peculiar, which I suspect makes much of the difference in mental interpretation.
Yeah but they disapprove because it soils the man’s qi, in a ‘this practice is not consistent with obviating temporal desire and attaining the Dao’ sort of way. That a woman is involved at all, let alone an unwilling one, is of no consequence - they’d complain just as much about a long goon session.
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Links: 1 2 3
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I would argue that it is more accurate to say that it is "uniquely Western" as we see similar attitudes present in the late Roman Republic, but to the extent that one's notion of "Western Civilization" is inextricably entangled with the influence of Christianity, I agree.
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I would argue that women have always thought it's wrong, so it seems more like the notion that women's feelings should be considered is peculiar historically. And I don't think it's that peculiar, or that Christians have been particularly better about not raping and treating lower class women as public goods. It is definitely not a uniquely Christian innovation that women have some say in who they marry; Christians are not the first people ever who recognized female agency and gave women rights.
Your reference to Jewish legal codes and Islam makes me think we're going to go down the same road we've gone before, where the worst and most uncharitable readings of what other religious books say should be taken literally, without context, and as exactly what all those people really believe and those with a more humanitarian reading aren't really following their religion, whereas Christianity (and the Old Testament in particular) should be not subjected to similar treatment.
I weary of the women-haters (I don't mean you, though you seem to be giving them too much credit) who argue that the natural (and implied: correct) state of man is to treat women as property and before our modern age, no man in any civilization ever gave a shit how females felt about their treatment.
The changes to law codes imposed by Christian missionaries are, afaik, not really disputable; they do seem to involve women being asked their consent to marriage. This process occasionally happens today in parts of the deep third world where Christianization imposes huge increases in the rights of women over very low baselines.
It's fair to point out that Christianity does not immediately solve every problem with poor treatment of marginalized groups, and that societies which are not Christian often have some informal pressure for women to get the rights Christian law codes later guarantee(the Viking sagas are quite explicit that a woman's father's consent is important to a marriage, not hers, but use the girl's consent as a trope marker for good fatherhood). But anthropologists are still making hay out of cultural differences between villages in polynesia and remote parts of Africa and the Amazon which were Christianized at different times. It seems to be a robust finding that women and girls in traditional societies have a much better go(albeit not up to modern western societies) when their village is Christian.
I'm not disputing that Christianity greatly improved the lot of women (and the poor, and many other marginalized groups). I'm disputing that improvements in women's rights are uniquely Christian and that only Christian societies ever treated them as more than property.
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There are precious few (though admittedly not zero) women-haters here who "argue that the natural (and implied: correct) state of man is to treat women as property". Most restrain themselves to recognizing that humans tend to view each other instrumentally by default, and that includes men viewing women instrumentally, women viewing men instrumentally, and society viewing both instrumentally. That the non-women-haters seem to only be concerned about the former and sometimes the latter--when women are being viewed instrumentally by society--demonstrates they don't view men as humans deserving rights and view women as inherently superior to men.
If I had a nickel...
It wouldn't be a lot of nickels, but it would be more than one.
The concise response to this is "balderdash."
The less concise response is basically the same with more words: people (like me) who push back against those who view women as instrumental goods/property are not the "Women Are Wonderful" simps the latter like to characterize the former as, but merely arguing that we are all human beings and part of rising above our monkey natures (which should be our goal as a species with starfaring ambitions) requires not viewing every relationship as transactional and every other human being as an instrumental good. This includes treating women as Sex, and whatever bad thing you think women treat men as.
How are "people who push back against those who view women as instrumental goods/property" and never push back against those who view men as instrumental goods/property while smearing any who do as "women-hater" not deserving of the title "Women Are Wonderful" simps?
I suppose such people exist, but I see people being accused of that with much greater frequency than the actual occurrence.
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