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Whenever the subject of feminist narratives comes up on this forum, one of the recurring arguments is that feminist messaging is ineffective, self-defeating even, the usual reason being given that it doesn’t reach the men it’s supposed to reach, and only reaches men who don’t need feminist messages in the first place because they’re pretty much acculturated in a feminist milieu anyway. (I know all this doesn’t necessarily sound fair or unbiased, but let’s ignore that for a moment.)
The most fitting example of this that is usually mentioned is the message that “we need to teach men not to rape”, which is supposedly a favorite of feminist activists on college campuses, corporate HR boards and elsewhere. Apparently they promote essentially the same idea as a great tool to combat sexual assault and harassment.
I don’t think I need to explain in detail why this argument sounds so dumb to the average man. Even when I come up with the most benevolent interpretation of this tactic that I can think of, it still seems misguided and, well, dumb. But then it occurred to me: the message makes 100% sense if we start from the assumption that modern feminists, eager to right cultural wrongs of the past that they perceive, really want to make sure their messaging never ever entails even a hint of the notion that women need to exercise any level of agency in order to avoid rape, assault or harassment of any type i.e. avoid bad men, because in all cases that would be “victim blaming” and horrific etc.
From that perspective, it all makes sense, sort of. Am I correct, or is there something else going on as well?
I think you’ve got to look at it this way- feminism is a class interest movement for college educated liberal urbanites. It is not, and hasn’t been for years, about women qua women. You’ll notice feminists are typically very concerned about rape on college campuses and blissfully ignorant of rape in the military, any guesses as to which one actually happens at above average rates? It’s because the type of women(and it is mostly but not entirely women) feminism represents pretty much all go to college and very rarely spend time in the military.
So with that in mind, ‘teach men not to rape’ is about generating assabiyah within the cohort. It’s a form of indoctrination into class interest through a universal right of passage for the group feminism is intended to represent. It’s not really about rape prevention; liberal sexual norms and substances can’t really be combined without having a rape problem(and I am not claiming that that’s the only way you have a rape problem- see the military, above. I’m claiming that it’s probably impossible to reduce the incidence of rape in heavily feminist-influenced strata below where it already is because of it, and the low hanging fruit has mostly been picked).
Now that being said, there’s probably men somewhere who could be influenced not to rape by consent-based sex Ed. Picture a fresh off the boat afghani migrant, for example- this guy probably literally doesn’t know that a girl walking down Main Street unescorted with her hair showing isn’t a hooker. It’s just not what consent based sex Ed is aimed at doing.
This is what I think is going on:
So perhaps what we can deduce from these observations is that the 'don't rape' seminaries are in fact shit tests (Usually unconscious effort by a woman to test man's worthiness and social status).
They do want the men that they are not attracted to not to make any kind of conventional romantic gesture (ie 'rapey' attitude or 'pre-rape' or what not), which is completely understandable.
They also expect the men that they are attracted to to be bold enough to push past these rules. After all, 50 shades of Grey is a best-seller.
In essence, the 'Hello HR?' meme, institutionalized. Plus it's a nice grift.
The men smart enough to fall for the training will eventually find out that successful men disregard it as needed, that's not gonna help with the I.N.C.E.L. terrorism, such as ;
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Since you bring up Afghanistan, I keep coming back to this article. Ignorance is not sufficient, malice is involved: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ive-worked-refugees-decades-europes-afghan-crime-wave-mind-21506?nopaging=1
Consent-based sex ed is not sufficient for cases like these, we should take a leaf from the Taliban's book (the leading authority in the field of governing Afghans) and publicly execute the above kind of rapists. Not the 'couldn't consent due to being too drunk' kind but the 'run out and assault women with their babies' kind.
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