Posted on 10/03/2014 7:39:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
There's really only one thing that progressives get wrong: human nature. This leads them into error on economics, where they imagine they can micromanage billions of individual decisions every day; foreign policy, in which they overestimate the appeal of "talks" and underestimate the ferocity and opportunism of aggressors; and sex, in which, well, where to begin?
California proposes to stop campus rape and sexual assault with a law redefining consent. Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation last week specifying that verbal consent must precede all sexual activity. Further, consent cannot be given if someone is incapacitated by drugs or alcohol.
Twenty years ago, Antioch College promulgated similar standards requiring verbal consent to each and every sexual act, starting with "May I kiss you" and moving on. Antioch, which closed its doors a few years later, was universally mocked, but it seems it was ahead of its time.
The Obama administration, which believes there is no problem so intractable that it cannot be solved with a hashtag or a celebrity spot, has produced a glitzy, star-studded PSA called "It's on Us" aimed, Newsweek explains, at "eradicating sexual assault on college campuses." That should do it.
Sen. Barbara Boxer has introduced the SOS Campus Act, which would require every institution of higher education that receives federal funding to designate an "independent advocate for campus sexual assault prevention and response" and fund a panoply of therapies and investigations.
You don't have to believe the one-in-four figure floated by activists to agree that women are experiencing a marked degree of sexual assault and battery in the liberated hook-up world liberalism has created. But this is progressivism chasing its tail.
For centuries, men have lied to women to lure them into bed. Parents warned their daughters about such men. In recent decades, it's women who've been lying to other women. Feminists peddled the notion that women want exactly the same things from sex that men do. They rejected modesty and its cousin chivalry with contempt and welcomed the sexual free-for-all.
They were wrong about human nature -- in this case immutable sex differences -- but cannot admit it.
It goes without saying that rapists should be severely punished. Most men are not rapists, but more than a few are sexually aggressive and inclined to interpret almost anything as encouragement. Is there a better possible environment than the modern college campus for serving up vulnerable young women to predatory men?
The binge-drinking culture that facilitates these rapes and assaults is tamely accepted and even encouraged at many colleges. As Pepper Schwartz writes at CNN.com, the American Sociological Association reports that men have a mean of six drinks before a hook up and women a mean of four. Why aren't colleges reminding young women to keep their wits about them when dealing with hormone-charged young men?
Women who lie to other women conceal the facts. For example: The National Institute of Justice reports that among the risk factors for sexual assault on campus are "having numerous sexual partners," getting "drunk or high" on a regular basis, and attending fraternity parties.
Pointing out these realities is rejected as "slut shaming" or "victim blaming" by feminists.
For all of their bold talk about empowerment, feminists seem always to demand that they not be forced to deal with reality. They preach to young women that they're just like men sexually, and when they find, to their horror, that lots of women are getting raped, they respond that women shouldn't be cautious about who they get drunk with; men should "be taught not to rape."
Imagine you're an administrator at a college near a really bad neighborhood. Do you warn the students about the nature of the neighborhood and urge them to travel in groups, stay away from certain streets after dark and keep their cellphones with them in case of danger? Or do you tell them the neighborhood is fine, just like the suburb in which they grew up? And when students get robbed, raped or murdered in those neighborhoods, do you insist that the message was fine, that we just have to teach people not to commit crimes?
Feminists have been lying to women for decades, thereby contributing to the "rape culture" they now decry.
I cannot help but wonder how many of these rapes are the result of morning after second thoughts.
There should be no tolerance for sexual assault, as long as there is a sexual assault. I am not convinced that guys are the mad rapists that some women feel they are.
Sure there are some bad guys out there. There are some bad women out there too.
This is one of those circumstances where every male who has sex is going to be guilty until proven innocent.
He is supposed to keep his wits about him. He is supposed to be responsible. If something happens, it’s his fault no matter what.
Where is her responsibility? As far as I can tell, she is not required to take on any at all.
Here we go again with the ‘ever man is a sexual predator’ talk.
After a while I just tune out.
We have a society that pushes sex at every turn. Then some woman has a few drinks, jumps a guy just as surely as he jumps her, and what do you know, it’s a rape.
Then the guy gets called in, told to leave school, charges are leveled. His life is ruined.
What percentage of the reported rapes on campuses across our nation more closely resemble this model, than an actual rape?
I ask this knowing full well that some women’s groups think every sex act is rape. They even think sex in marriage is rape.
I’m curious what part groups like this play in the overall perception that rapes are rampant on university campuses.
I’m not excusing the man that does commit rape here. I consider rape to be a very serious crime. By the same token, a man falsely labeled is seriously harmed too. That harm can last a lifetime as well.
There’s really only one thing that progressives get wrong: EVERYTHING
(see how much quicker I was at getting to the point?!)
Bump.
Government has bent over backwards to drive Western and Judeo-Christian values out of the schools, emasculate parents, marginalize religion and silence religious expression, demonize heterosexuality and natural relations between the sexes, elevate obscenity and destroy the institution of marriage. Now, when 18-year-old “children” are considered full-grown “adults”, even though their brains will not complete development until age 25 and many are still financially dependent on their parents, the government wants to step in and insert mechanical rules governing the most intimate part of their lives. Oh kaaaaaay.
/echo. Every thought and action by progressives are tainted thereafter.
IOW, a cry of “rape” is really just buyers remorse.
The other side of the coin is that any man who says NO to a horny woman can expect that the next words out of her mouth will be something like, “What’s wrong with you, are you gay?” Women these days seem to want to be the aggressor in many cases but they cannot deal with being told no. I have read so much garbage from female writers about how men have weak egos and cannot stand rejection. Just try being a somewhat attractive young man being hit on by ugly drunk women and see how well she handles rejection. I have been that young man many years ago and I can tell you that women do NOT handle rejection at all, let alone handle it well.
Just a few years ago I actually had a woman tell me that she did not believe that any man ever turned down any woman because she was “ugly”. My, my, what a fantasy she lives in.
Brains may not mature physically until 25 but sixteen year olds used to act more mature than most fifty year olds do now. Sixteen year olds used to take on adult responsibility such as driving school buses and handle it quite well indeed. Then, at some point, parents stopped teaching their children to want to be adults.
Like Whoopi said, “It wasn’t rape, rape.”
In some instances.
I don’t want to go too far in my objection to some of this, but it seems clear to me that men are being made out to be universally sex criminals.
No.
I have seen the same thing.
You know what, I’ve seen some pretty crass guys in my life. I’ve seen some very crass women also. Women seem to have some idyllic idea that women are always proper and men are the ones who are the fringe of society. Men are the mean ones, be afraid of them all.
I have yet to meet a man that won’t engage just about any woman in conversation. That doesn’t mean he will sleep with her. It just means he isn’t threatened by the social engagement. The vast majority of women won’t. They tell themselves that they can’t, because men are monsters.
I have never seen a woman approach a man and be laughed at by the group he is with. I have seen women do this just about every time I’ve been out in a singles social environment.
Back to your topic. Boy, once you display that you are not interested, the woman can become very hostile. She won’t look at you, speak to you, or even admit you exist.
You never said you hated her. You just didn’t want to date her. You could be a social friend. Good luck with that.
If you date a woman once and she breaks it off with you, or you date her once and you break it off, the chances are very good she’ll totally close off to you.
That seems very strange to me.
Women can think what they want, but boy are there some real female characters out there.
One thing about progressives women they are never the other women.
what about lesbian rape? of female or male?
That is a very good point.
I've always had a problem with the message that a woman should be able to dress however she wants and go anywhere she wants, yet the suggestion that she shouldn't have worn revealing clothing and gone to a bar alone is called "blaming the victim." While technically true that a woman *should* be able to wear anything and go anywhere without fear of being raped, the fact is that the world does not work that way. Criminals *will* take advantage of an opportunity to commit a crime.
Everyone has a choice in how much of an opportunity they present to criminals. It is up to the individual to make the right choice.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.