Sexism and Men's Issues

It entirely depends on what form of female and male circumcision is being gone for. Which is why I always advocate for encouraging the much lesser versions in cultures that do want something like it, rather than e.g. the "full Egyptian". -_-

Outright banning tends to make people go for the more extreme and underground methods — with all the problems those entail. <_< Traditional rites of passage can be encouraged to be more sanitary and safe, while still allowing for the ties to the past.

To be honest, if tattoos, piercings, ear plugs, ritual scarring and using bullet ants are all acceptable means of cultural expression, I don't see the problem. (Personally, I think it's mostly just squick that people are "doing things down there".)

Not all female circumcision is genital mutilation (Type IV is the one to look at, btw). As I said: there are variations. Ritual circumcision that doesn't go near the clitoris and is practically cosmetic, only (if ruddy painful), is doable — and, if done properly... about as risky as male circumcision (i.e. not very — certainly not in comparison to other methods). But, most people in the West only hear about the really horrible stuff and don't learn about the rest. <waves her African background around> Rites of passage are important! But, they should be encouraged to not be mutilation and dire risks to health.

edited 30th Jul '14 9:56:11 AM by Euodiachloris

Are there any groups pushing to have male circumcision on babies and children (or anyone who doesn't/can't consent) illegal? I know it's not as bad as FGM damage-wise, I don't think anyone's ever claimed it is (hence why it's called FGM instead of "female circumcision"). Don't get me wrong, if it's absolutely necessary for medical reasons or he's old enough to decide for himself that he wants it (perhaps aged 18 or 21, depending on the country/state?), do it, but doing it to baby or infant boys should be illegal.

Also, I'd like to know what some of the statistical/mathematically minded of you think of these claims that male victims are more common than we'd think:

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2014.301946?journalCode=ajph Info on their methodology is on the page, basically they claim that the gap between male and female victims isn't so great.

http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/03/coerced-sex.aspx 43% of males in high school and college reported unwanted sexual experiences-95% of them claimed the perp was a female.

http://www.vocativ.com/underworld/crime/hard-truth-girl-guy-rape/ This article makes a lot of legit points about male victims of women having a tough time talking about it but the article includes the CDC report in it's evidence of how widespread male victims are. Someone (Iaculus?) has already shown that's not what the CDC stats show, but could anyone breakdown the other surveys on there?

Lastly, a site called "Mankind Initiative" claims that 38% of UK domestic abuse victims are male, among other claims. I have the file-which includes their sources- but don't know how to upload it to my post :(. But I find their stats suspicious cos 1)the name sounds MRM-like and 2) on their site they rag on about Feminism, another MRM trait.

If anyone could confirm or debunk the stats for me, that'd be great. I would do it myself but stats are confusing and easy to manipulate/misunderstand and I'm not a mathematician/statistician. The reason I'm asking about these stats is cos MRA's keep throwing these and other stats around as "proof" of virtually no gap in the number of male and female victims, and their "proof" has been debunked before. Are these stats fake/manipulated or legit?

edited 30th Jul '14 7:46:36 AM by OdinsLeftEye

The name's Axel. Wanna check out Aim 4 The Head, my Zombie Apocalypse spoof comic?: http://www.smackjeeves.com/comicprofile.php?id=138048

Germany tried to make male circumcision illegal. Jews and Muslims went nuts. Germany did not make male circumcision illegal.

edited 30th Jul '14 7:09:58 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Well, I looked into the article on college sexual experiences. There are two man points of contention.

First, the data was about "unwanted sexual advances" or "sexual seduction" from anyone up and including partners. While that's great information for talking about sexual harassment, it's much more nebulous in terms of sexual assault. The way the study is written, a girlfriend stroking a boyfriend on the cheek would be the same data point as her having sex with him passed-out drunk. That's problematic.

Second, "unwanted" is just as nebulous and not defined within the study itself (or, if it was, please point it out, since I sped-read through the document). That means that, for example, if my girlfriend was horny and I was tired/annoyed/whatever and totally didn't feel like dealing with that, this would count as "unwanted".

Hypothetically, it would also include the time I (apparently) slept through a stripper giving me a lap dance at my friend's party. Something I was never even aware of until they told me later. Even though I probably would have wanted it while awake, the fact remains that I was asleep and unresponsive while she did it.

Sounds like it differentiates between cheek-stroking and sex with the unconscious and what "unwanted" means, though I could be wrong. I'm naff at reading stats and figures and facts...

The name's Axel. Wanna check out Aim 4 The Head, my Zombie Apocalypse spoof comic?: http://www.smackjeeves.com/comicprofile.php?id=138048

I was more talking along the lines of the 43% figure, but you're right. They did break it down further in that way.

And this is why we need to teach people what rape is. Not just how not to get raped.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

This. All of it.

"That wizard came from the moon!"

That's misleading. Germany didn't try to make it illegal, it always WAS illegal due to the different interaction of laws and the constitution. What happened is that a child got serious health problems after circumcision, it went to court and the court basically realized that according to the constitution, it's illegal. A new law got introduced to change that. (If that law is actually constitutional is a different question).

@Euodiachloris
I know there are different forms of both practices (even male circumcision), but for me it doesn't really matter how severe something is if it is performed on unconsenting children. Shouldn't be allowed at all (and yes, I oppose piercing of ear lobes of 2 year olds - by the way there are rulings from Germany that consider that illegal as well). On the other hand, I think neither male nor female genital "modification" should be illegal for adults.

Somehow relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_shalom_%28naming_ceremony%29

Pour y voir clair, il suffit souvent de changer la direction de son regard www.xkcd.com/386/

Thanks for the correction.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

I just wanted to say that I very much appreciate the way you phrased this; the commonly-used "teach men not to rape" has all kinds of negative implications and misunderstandings that are detrimental to any discussions on the subject. Saying it like this gives a much clearer picture of what the issue really is.

edited 30th Jul '14 2:22:15 PM by Zennistrad

That is more difficult than people think...mostly because the courts don't know.

I've been doing some research into self-defense law in America, and here's an interesting fact I uncovered; while "rape" is defined by various statutes in all 50 states, the definition is very much lacking. In most places the act (usually defined as some variant on "sexual acts performed without consent") is written out but consent as a term is not defined. It is used, but no definition exists. I'm wondering if this is one of the reasons rape is so hard to prosecute.

Worse, in over half the state laws I looked at sexual assault by itself is not grounds for use-of-force. In most places the attacker must attempt to be violent before the potential victim can use force to protect themselves. This creates what one attorney I spoke to called "the hidden trap" regarding sex crime; in a lot of places, if you use force to defend yourself against a sexual assault (that does not involve violence or the "imminent threat" of it) you could well find yourself being charged with battery/attempted murder. The jails and prisons of America are apparently full of people who found this out the hard way.

Aside: the worst state for this is Minnesota. Nowhere in their statutes or case law (precedent set down by the history of court decisions) is the question of use-of-force involving a sexual assault mentioned. Whether a person can defend themselves against rape using force is apparently an open question. I wouldn't want to be the test case there.

So yeah; "teaching people what rape is" sounds like a great idea but the courts (and by extension, the state legislatures) need to get off their ass and figure out just what the hell the legal definition actually is. Right now, it's all just an ill-defined notion.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

@Zeal: what's wrong with the 43% figure?

@Shimaspawn:

Pure, undiluted awesome .

@Zenn: Yeah, the "teach men not to rape"/"only men can stop rape" line is incredibly offensive. It excludes/ignores victims of female-female and female-male rape. Not only that, but like I said before- if a group of only women see a rape happening they can and will stop it. And it's pretty clear that girls and women need to be taught what is and isn't consent too- whether it's their own consent or a male's consent. Especially that an erection is not, by itself, consent- what matters is what he says.

edited 1st Aug '14 3:33:28 AM by OdinsLeftEye

The name's Axel. Wanna check out Aim 4 The Head, my Zombie Apocalypse spoof comic?: http://www.smackjeeves.com/comicprofile.php?id=138048

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jonlester88/men-that-will-change-the-way-you-look-at-male-body-uzkk?s=mobile

I am all for promoting a healthy image inside and out. I am also glad a lot of the men featured are skilled athletes.

Fit does not always equal thin.

These men maybe bigger, but I am willing to bet they can still outrun and out lift the average man easy.

That should be our focus, be healthy for your build. My son will probably be a bigger guy. Both of his grandfather's were over 6 foot and broad chested. His father is shorter but still has larger shoulders.

All I care is to help encourage him to be a good big, a healthy big should that be how he turns out and just healthy otherwise should he not.

All I ask is, (and I am glad the article shows this too) is dress for your size. You can look sexy as hell even as a bigger person, but you need to wear clothes that fit you to help it.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

As I said, the way the data is described, included in that 43% is someone who was forcibly raped, or someone who was drugged and raped, or someone who had a woman casually flirt with him out of nowhere, or someone who was kinda tired when they came home, but their girlfriend was in this really hot outfit and really horny, so they decided to just go with it anyway even though they really didn't feel it. As I said, unless there's another clarification of "unwanted" in that study that I missed, all four scenarios are included in that 43% figure.

Not that I don't think this figure is irrelevant; as I said, this is a great slab of research for sexual harassment, and for fighting the notion that A Man Is Always Eager. But, the 43% figure is kind of misleading when we're talking about actual rape or coercion.

edited 1st Aug '14 6:56:17 AM by KingZeal

Ah, now I see: they should've defined clearly what "unwanted" means, even though it is about being coerced. And still- half of the total ended up having intercourse. But they do go into detail of what coercion and seduction mean:

Don't know if that helps.

edited 2nd Aug '14 7:30:05 AM by OdinsLeftEye

The name's Axel. Wanna check out Aim 4 The Head, my Zombie Apocalypse spoof comic?: http://www.smackjeeves.com/comicprofile.php?id=138048

Wait, threatening to break up with someone counts as coercion?

It's often brought up as one way of coercion, yes.

Just a few links that mention it. There are probably more in the history of the other sexism threads as well that include it in the statistics.

[1], [2], [3]

Check out my fanfiction!

But people have the right to end a relationship if they want to. Yeah, someone who uses that threat to get sex is probably a jerk, but I don't see how there's anything criminal in it.

I think this thread is delving into the difference between denotation and connotation.

Agreed. In a sense, I can see how that could be considered manipulative. On the other hand, for example, I don't like getting up before 6 am, but I need to be dressed and ready at my job at 6 am. Is my employer therefore coercing me out of bed? Denotatively, this depends on our definition, but connotatively, no.

@drunkscriblerian: I think the courts/legislature are being intentionally vague. I've heard that when they want to define something, they do so to minute details, so that there is no wiggle room. When avoid details, they do this to avoid loop holes and enable laws to be used to handle newly arising situations without requiring either ex post facto laws (which are forbidden in US criminal law) or judicial activism. For example, consider the following sample law "reasonable precautions must be taken by owners of dangerous animals, or they shall be liable for any harm those animals cause". It is ambiguous which animals are considered "dangerous". "Lions and tigers and bears, (oh my)" would be far less ambiguous but would be more susceptible to loopholes(e.g. ligers) and wouldn't be able to be applied to owners of leopards, panthers, snakes, crocodiles, etc. Reasonable is another vague concept, and law-writers freaking love to use it.

To go back to the topic at hand, consent is, I agree, vaguely defined as a legal term. What is it? Agreement. Nope, we have an age of consent. Agreement, given one is over a age? Nope, those with IQ's below a certain arbitrary threshold() can be held to be incapable of giving consent. What about mind altering substances, like alcohol? They apparently render one incapable of giving sexual consent, I haven't heard one way or the other on consent to legal contracts, etc., and they have no bearing your culpability if you get behind the wheel, crash, and kill someone. (EDIT: actually, this last isn't actually an example of consent, never mind). Oh, and age of consent isn't an absolute thing either (e.g. Romeo and Juliet laws).

In summation, one can either have clear laws that are difficult to use to do their job, or have vague laws that rely on the discretion and wisdom of individual persons, which can fail. (Such as in Minnesota, where apparently, prosecutors haven't heard of the concept of 'prosecutorial discretion'.

In summation of the summation: Writing laws is hard Writing good laws is hard.

edited 2nd Aug '14 4:56:35 PM by sharur

Nihil assumpseris, sed omnia resolvere!

Oh well, Daily Mail. I understand they are more on the sensationalist side.

So if I understand this right, men commit violence against those guys on behalf of the reporting women.

edited 5th Aug '14 5:56:56 AM by blauregen

All I know is, my gut says maybe.

The Daily Mail isn't on the sensationalist side, it's on the "make shit up to get headlines" and "fascist propaganda rag" side. It's entirely possible that someone at the Daily Mail just invented that entire story, they tend do that.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

The core story seems to be from the Kenyan Post. But maybe this is a subsidiary.

And this link reports the same.

And this seems to be the original source.

Oh well, you are probably right. Violence against and forced circumcision of men is silly. And especially the idea that women would rat them out because they believe they perform better in bed then.

edited 5th Aug '14 7:35:04 AM by blauregen

All I know is, my gut says maybe.

I think it's entirely possible for it to happen, but when your source is a paper that advocated for Hitler, I'm going to ask for another source, which you have now provided.

edited 5th Aug '14 8:02:48 AM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

So someone decided to make an iPhone game about abusing your boyfriend. Because apparently domestic abuse is hilarious now.