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German police chief Dirk Peglow has stated on national television that his advice to women who want to avoid violence is to avoid relationships with men. This has naturally caused some controversy, and although it will likely be forgotten soon, I do think it shines a spotlight on some topics worth discussing.
First, this is clearly not meant to be taken literally. In the broader context, the comment is based on the fact that reports of sexual assaults have increased over the past year in Germany, and he simply meant to highlight the fact that most assaults are not perpetrated by strangers but people you know. Still, the way he chose to frame it matters. Public perception would have probably been much different if the man had specifically highlighted men with Arabic backgrounds as being dangerous, even though a similar argument of "just educating people on statistics" would still have been accurate. He could have also chosen to to warn women against certain behaviors. "If your man is violent, get out before it escalates" is a complete sentence with a clear call to action that fits neatly into a soundbite. If the goal was to help women, this advice would also be much more actionable than the ridiculous "don't date men at all", making it more likely to actually help people. Alternatively, he could have chosen to not be alarmist at all. "German streets are quite safe, and crime overall is down" would have emphasized that women are unlikely to be assaulted by strangers in public, and would have helped to spread some confidence in the population.
The field of medicine is very aware that undue anxiety presents a risk to personal health. Doctors are generally quite conservative when it comes to recommending blood tests or other diagnostic procedures to seemingly healthy patients. This is because false positives and the associated stress can lead the patient down an expensive and anxiety ridden path of uncertainty and increasingly invasive medical procedures that can significantly affect quality of life and mental health. The risk of overdiagnosis is great enough, that even if you were a billionaire with ample money to spare, a good doctor would still recommend against screening for illnesses when you show no significant symptoms. When you are a public official though, care for the mental health of your citizens apparently goes out the window. Making inflammatory statements that cause anxiety among women, shame among men, and divide the population are apparently fine as long as they result in viral video clips and conform to feminist dogma.
So I wonder: Why did he phrase it like this? Telling women to blanket avoid men is a borderline impossible ask. If he really wanted to help women, he should have spoken of specific character traits (violence or addiction for example) that they should stay away from. Is he part of some invisible cabal, attempting to lower German fertility rate and weaken the nation?
Maybe he just doesn't care about the repercussions his words may have on the German people. Politics seems to often select for people that care very little about their constituents, and are mostly just there to climb the social hierarchy whatever it takes, so maybe this message was a way for him to fit in with his peers. If so, this is potentially quite worrying. The incentive structure should ideally reward public officials who have the best interests of the citizens at heart, and punish those who use their position as a means to a selfish end. If this is not the case, the we could see some truly horrible politicians in the future.
Or maybe the man is actually a devout feminist. A true believer who legitimately thinks that "Men are dangerous" is an important message that must be spread in order to turn society into a better place. It just seems insane to me that an adult man would believe this. Surely he must see that his warning implicates himself and his friends as dangers to women as well. Do men like that even exist?
The answer is simple. It's not about making women safe, it's about dragging men as a political class. There's never much trouble finding a member of a group to be the public face of opposing it. Mearsheimer, Candace Owens, Milo etc.
This is not a public service announcement to reduce female risk of victimization, this is a political blood libel aimed at shoring up the paranoia of the sort of bigots who think all men are racist patriarchal scum (but not the good Mr. Peglow).
Right, but using "men" as your outgroup is ridiculous, no? Like, we are talking about literally half the population here, including the speaker himself.
I understand that there is political power in uniting behind a common course, and that there is utility in naming a smaller but still decently big group (immigrants, jews, roma, etc.) that you can blame for all your problems. But the fact that it is possible to just blame "men" is wild. Even wilder that so many men men go along with it. The same "bigots who think all men are racist patriarchal scum" will absolutely turn on him the moment it becomes politically opportune to do so.
In practice it's only "men who self consciously see themselves as men in terms of political class".
But yes, it's generally a bad idea in any democracy to gain a reputation for hating half the country.
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It is less than optimal, certainly; however, it can be made reasonable with a slight change: namely, reduce the scope from 'all men' to 'men who claim that certain actions by a woman constitute irrevocable consent to sex'¹.
If Alice does not want to have sex with Bob at this time, and has made this clear to him, and Bob forces himself upon Alice, Bob is always in the wrong. This does not change if Alice stays overnight at Bob's house rather than risk dying of hypothermia, it does not change if Bob paid for Alice's dinner, it does not change if Alice got drunk and pursued sex with every other man in their circle, it does not change if Alice eagerly consented to sex with Bob last week, and it does not change if Alice and Bob declared at a large public ceremony and in official records that they intended to have an ongoing sexual relationship; the same applies if the gender of either or both is reversed.
I would advise my daughter to avoid dating anyone who disputes this.
¹cf. claims that consenting to sex constitutes an absolute acceptance of the obligation to pregnancy.
This again seems like putting words in my mouth. I already stated I would be fine with specifying the advice into avoiding men who exhibit certain traits. Pressuring you into sex against your will could reasonably be one such. But that is not what this man did. He implicated every man as equally dangerous. This is useless and makes every man his outgroup. Retreating to your motte when criticized does not erase the bailey argument.
I do not endorse Herr Peglow's remarks. I have elsewhere argued against his apparent worldview. I was merely stating an argument he could have made, and that if he had done so instead of blaming half of humanity, he would have been on more solid ground.
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I don't really understand this consent-maximizing worldview.
What is the point of these statements? The best way to avoid rape is to avoid being in the physical proximity of any given person that would rape you.
What does telling your daughter this accomplish exactly?
Are you making a formal promise that she can freely get intoxicated around any given man and if anything she does not like happen, some kind of system will provide satisfying retribution on her behalf? Are you also teaching your sons that it is their duty to go and start fights with drunk men who are 'preying' on women who are enthusiastically following your teachings?
Is it rape if she is drunk? Is it rape if he is drunk? Is it murder if the killer of your son is drunk?
If your daughter is stranded on an island with Bob and Bob controls the one safe shelter, is it rape if they have sex? Sometimes the choice is between rape and murder, I suppose, or manslaughter by exposure.
But either way, nobody is likely to adjudicate any kind of justice or protection on her behalf any time soon. Making your daughter more fearful of consequences of being alone with a man might actually prevent her from taking that far-away vacation in a plane with a man that led her to being stranded on the island, however.
Which is a lot more practical if we establish a standard that "No person is ever justified in forcing himself on another person, regardless of what choices that other person made.", thus reducing the number of potential perpetrators.
Giving her advice that (1.) she can follow while still dating people of the gender to which she is attracted, and (2.) will steer her towards people who are not pre-positioned to decide that they are entitled to take advantage of her.
If by 'anything she does not like' means 'some arsehole decides that he is entitled to access to her body notwithstanding her clearly expressed unwillingness', and 'satisfying retribution on her behalf' means 'assailant not given leniency relative to the counter-factual case in which he grabbed a woman who was following the "Saved, Sanctified, Separated, and Suit-Wearing Baptist Church Manual for Godly Courtship" to the letter', then yes, society owes her such a promise.
No, but I would teach him that it is his duty to Notify The Proper Authorities; he would have a duty to personally intervene if (a.) he were one of the Proper Authorities, being issued with armaments and drawing a salary from all of our tax money, or (b.) he fell through a portal into an anarchist world in which the Proper Authorities did not exist.
Her being drunk doesn't make him less culpable for ignoring her unambiguous refusal. Whether enthusiastic consent can be invalidated by intoxication is a matter which will have to be left for a later time.
Yes.
If he makes access to the shelter contingent on sexual favours, or implies that it is, yes. If he lets her in unconditionally, and their liaison is solely motivated by mutual desire, no.
Until they get back to civilisation....
How is talking to your daughter going to reduce the number of potential perpetrators? Or are you talking about a different kind of action you are simultaneously undertaking to affect wider society? If you believe that a more comprehensive 'consent maximalist' approach is needed on a societal level, do you also simultaneously advocate for the mass importation of men from countries notorious for a comparatively more 'laisser-faire approach to consent', so to speak? 'Bad hombres' as one quite laisser-faire man himself put it.
Do you also teach your children that the most important consideration while crossing the street is whether or not the light says they are owed the right-of-way, and not whether or not the fast-travelling vehicles actually stop?
Given the fallout of the #MeToo movement in the past few years, is it not questionable whether the most vocal proponents of a maximalist approach to consent are not also themselves prone to consent infractions?
It seems likely to me that the people who need to come up with complicated rules around intoxication and consent in the first place probably are involved in higher-than-average 'complicated' sexual situations that may or may not have to involve a judge at some point.
Isn't that the crux of the matter? If her being intoxicated invalidates her 'enthusiastic consent', his being intoxicated also invalidates his own 'enthusiastic consent' to the rape, he is being falsely accused of what he did not consciously engage in.
Similarly for killing a family while drunk driving. Somehow the important factor is not whether or not the booze cruiser purposefully plowed into the minivan, but that they decided to get drunk in the first place.
In my humble opinion, it should be illegal to serve young women alcohol, as they may unknowingly be carrying a child, to spare potential fetal alcohol syndrome.
If
Well, for one thing, if her date tries to force himself on her using one of the aforementioned excuses, he is less likely to gain her acquiescence and more likely to end up with a face full of pepper spray, a kick to the nadgers, and/or a court summons.
Yes. I am referring to the arcane art known as 'teaching my sons that a woman is entitled a veto over her nether regions, and cannot forfeit it by inchastity.'
I reject the framing of 'importation'. Immigrants are human beings with agency, who choose to relocate; they are not widgets brought in by the container-load.
However, I am in favour of (1.) more efforts to educate immigrants from such countries that women in the West have the right to say no themselves, without the involvement of a husband or a male relative, and that a woman not being under the control of a man does not make her a public accommodation, and (2.) prosecuting brown rapists to the same degree as white rapists.
No, but I would teach them that a driver who runs over a pedestrian does not become less liable because the pedestrian assumed that they would adhere to the traffic laws.
They are certainly not immune to such, but someone who publicly avers that, if a woman does XYZ, he is entitled to coitus with her regardless of her preferences, and to take it forcibly if she does not agree, is probably (1.) more dangerous, and (2.) not someone I want raising children.
Perhaps there was a mis-communication on my part. I am not at this time addressing the cases in which Alice and Bob were both drunk, did the dance with no pants, and Alice or Carol accuses Bob the next morning of rape. I am referring to the simpler case in which Alice does not want to be intimate with Bob, makes this quite clear to him, and he forces himself on her anyway. In that case, Bob is guilty of rape, and his guilt is not lessened one iota because Alice was three sheets to the wind.
And if they don't, what stops Alice from channeling Lorena Bobbitt?
And how does that work out for your daughter? The context being one of these:
I'm not advocating rape or anything but one must remember that men's facial bones are a lot sturdier than women's bones, and the same punch in the face has very different effects between the two. There are men out there who will tank several bullets before being incapable of further violence, and since all that matters to you is the practicality of consent and not the context in which it takes place, prioritizing violent resistance could spell big trouble for your daughter. Sometimes rape turns into murder.
After all, if Alice was previously having enthusiastic sex with Bob and Bob is a rapist, perhaps Alice has a thing for rapists.
Of course if you never told Alice that perhaps she should not be inebriated in the company of hulking gang members with face tattoos and multiple convictions for violent crimes, and you hold dear that whatever choices Alice make are reasonable ones that should never be looked at if she ever gets victimized, perhaps Bob is, shocker, prone to raping.
If Alice somehow survives one 'consent incident' with Bob, would you enthusiastically support her going drinking with Bob the following week?
This is apparently the accusation leveled against Eric Swalwell, that the same woman was taken advantage of in 2 separate instances of intoxication around him.
How could she make it clear to him if Bob is too drunk to consent and presumably understand that she is not consenting?
Indeed why aren't women just killing rapists left and right? This is just another version of choosing the man or the bear, and women pick the man.
Sounds like a character straight out of the latest top-selling romantasy.
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That sounds like prostitution. This is a different sexual behavior than rape.
If Alice and Bob divide up the maintenance schedule for the shelter, and Alice subsequently offers sexual favours to Bob in exchange for his carrying out her share as well as his own, that would be prostitution.
Is he obligated to provide her with shelter?
Now requiring her to trade sex for it is a scummy thing to do. But it is not rape, that's the use of coercion or force to obtain sex from an unwilling partner.
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What are you talking about?
I'm not certain what part of my comment is unclear; can you be more specific?
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From what perspective? On an individual basis this police chief gets net positive brownie points for bashing men as a group. Feminists and their Leftist allies eat it up, most men don't care, and then men who do care aren't organized enough to do anything about it.
From a broader perspective, it's probably not the best idea politically. To illustrate, in the last election cycle, the Democrats desperately needed to court male voters, but from an institutional perspective it was difficult if not impossible. All they could come up with was tone-deaf, insulting ads. Being perceived as the political party that hates men (and hates white people) is a huge albatross around the neck of the Democrats, one which causes them a lot of problems notwithstanding the gerrymandering, the importation of millions of third-worlders, the election shenanigans, etc.
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Isn't it just as wild to blame white people in a country where they have a majority or plurality? Yet the enemy does it all the time.
You have been warned, repeatedly, for jerking off about “the enemy”. I was gonna give examples, but Cjet was nice enough to collect them last time. Everything he said still applies.
One month ban.
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Is this not just the success recipe of Christianity? The modal pastor constantly thunders against fornicators (presumably a good majority of their audience, per the strict definition) and sinners (everyone in their audience).
It turns out "you and I, we are both bad, but I am superior to you because I at least acknowledge it" is actually an appealing meme. Perhaps it allows those who have lingering feelings that they are bad recover a sense of self-worth without having to repress those feelings, or perhaps being able to tell someone else "you are bad" feels so good that it's worth acknowledging the "I am bad" for.
Camus' "The Fall" is basically about this. He calls it the "Judge Penitent", the man who confesses his degeneracy and uses that as moral cachet to criticize the failings of others.
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This is not my experience. Most preach directly on the issue less than people assume (for good or ill), and when they do I usually wouldn't describe it as thundering – precisely because they know that's not what folks in their congregations usually need.
The closest I have seen to this are some youth pastors. When you are teaching a consistent age group, there is always a new cohort of kids that needs to be firmly reminded to keep its pants on. And that message is usually pretty empathetic, because they know how hard it is.
I guess this could be described as thundering sometimes, as the law side of law and gospel. And "whiteness" is often described as something that can be repented of. So the analogy sort of works here. But without Jesus to bear anyone's sins, it's more of a racial Pelagianism.
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Christianity provides a path to redemption. "men bad" rhetoric does not. Putting down other men does not make me a better person in the eyes of the feminist,as it is me being a man that is the problem.
Sure it does, be a good male ally, don’t take up space, defer to women, acknowledge your privilege, pay for your sins, accept any abuse hurtled at you as remuneration for your sin.
Its all very Christian in nature.
None of that will cause the feminists to view me as any less tainted. In Christianity, I can be forgiven for doing evil deeds, and after a long period of redemption, people will see me as good and I can eventually be accepted by the group. For feminists, the fact that I am a male makes me part of the oppressor group, and no matter what I do to distance myself, I will always be an outsider. No matter how good I am, I will never be forgiven for the sins of men.
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None of that actually gives you an honorable place in the feminist or progressive movement, just more derision. What you actually need to do is score wins for the tribe in the public arena, then they'll let you do the creepiest sexist shit you can think of, and will even sweep it under the rug for you.
It's actually as anti-Christian as anything can be.
It’s a path to redemption not a path to place of honor. Unless you would claim that Christianity honors equality all sinners who have joined in following Christ. But considering the hierarchical nature of most churches I think thats a lot to swallow
Also, creepy megachurch pastors? Pedo Priests? Allowing people in power to abuse that power is classic human dynamics. Cast not the first stone unless ye are free from sin.
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I'll observe that the history of Christendom has no shortage of examples of both types of this behavior here: it's not like rank hypocrisy is a modern invention.
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Well yes. I think the western countries in generally lack a national identity that the citizens can get behind. This only works due to a lack of identification with the group that these people are criticizing. Still, I would have expected some general immune response when a decent person is being lumped in with criminals and racist. "How dare you group me with those people!" seems much more reasonable than "You are correct, let me apologize for the actions of people I never even met."
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There isn't a veto on beliefs for being ridiculous or self defeating. The people who venerated Mangos during the cultural revolution are just like you and me. And Germans aren't exactly unfamiliar with silly radicalism turned mad.
The fact that these beliefs are insane is scary precisely because that doesn't mean people won't act on the insanity.
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