"Such advice is likely to make many decent young men super-anxious or super-chivalrous"

These men need to protect their reputations, educational path, and career prospects. So if they're smart, such advice will make them stop dating women who attend the same school. It's simply too dangerous.

Amy and Cathy are great. But credit where due...

If it's true that "the overwhelming majority of men need no teaching that rape is a repugnant crime," it's because they've already been taught.

But it's a lot of work to teach that to boys, and it has to happen every time we get a new one. I think our habits and patterns for teaching men to be decent are the essence of Western civilization.

Too many women in our culture, mostly coddled ninnies, want to believe that men are just like women who've been badly socialized.

We shouldn't let our cliché reinforce this stupidity.

After all, they're never going to travel to the Middle East or the isolated valleys of the Sudan to put their foolishness to the test, are they?

Its the grey area stuff they need to be taught about, the date rapes, the drunk rapes. Not the jumping out of the bushes scenarios

Its the grey area stuff they need to be taught about, the date rapes, the drunk rapes. Not the jumping out of the bushes scenarios

Nice idea, but anytime anyone asks a reasonable questions feminists call them a rape apologist.

Kinda makes it hard to have a teaching moment. A mindless dogma peppered rant can sail thru but no one really listens to those

@Crid: Yes, it's all part of civilized behavior. Something distinctly lacking in certain cultures.

@NicoleK: The gray areas, yes, those are important to work on.

However, the current presumption seems to be that, when two intoxicated people have sex with each other, the male has taken advantage of the female. That is unacceptable. Women are just as responsible for their actions as men, and regrets the day after do not change poor judgement into rape.

And who is to educate our boys and men about the "gray areas?" The public discourse on such matters is dominated by feminist ideology, and gray becomes black as soon as a girl or woman says so (even well after the fact). There is no other side to be considered. Boys and men have trouble understanding this "lesson" because it is inherently unfair.

I'll go a bit further than lujlp. I won't be lectured at or guilt tripped by people for whom I have no respect. See "Holder, Eric" and "Dialog about race" for another example.

If there is a "culture of rape" in America it's surrounding butt-rape. We seem to cheer with barbaric glee at the idea - we genuinely seem to collectively "don't know" it's wrong, men and women alike.

If feminists had intellectual honesty, they would decry that more men are raped in the US than women:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2449454/More-men-raped-US-women-including-prison-sexual-abuse.html

Where's the outcry? (crickets)

The idea that there's an epidemic of men raping women because they somehow didn't know it was wrong seems bizarre to me. If they don't know it's wrong, why do they try keep it secret when they do it? OK, except for cases like Steubenville, where the very structures of authority had been perverted to the point of covering up for the rapists. Is that the norm or an exception?

The pattern is seen again and again - for any criminal activity you can name, the vast majority knows right from wrong, and there's a tiny sociopathic minority that can't be taught because they're just not wired to understand.

Hey Lobster!

"Intellectual honesty!"

"Its the grey area stuff they need to be taught about, the date rapes, the drunk rapes. Not the jumping out of the bushes scenarios" NicoleK

um, yeah, nope. The guys have already been taught all along WHAT rape is all about, regardless if drunk or what have you. The small percentage that commit these crimes are no less sociopaths just because they don't jump out of the bushes.

>the rate of sexual assaults dropped by more than 50 percent from 1999 to 2005 with no targeted educational campaigns.

If you look at our our lifetimes, rapes peaked in the early 90's along with a great number of other violent crimes, including murder, and then have gone back down since. Murder down to a rate from the mid 60's, and rape to a time in the mid 80's...

yet, you talk to people and they will tell you the murder rate is scaring hell out of them, that it's unsafe to be on any college campus because of the rapes... or something.

Clues as to why this has happened? There are as many theories, as theorists. But "Teaching" guys in college right from wrong?

For one thing, how many guys that have this predilection actually GO places where they can taught after middle school? What percentage of this actually happens on campus? At UCLA in 2011 there were 12 rapes, in a student population of 38,157 and Business insider considers it the most dangerous school in the US, on it's list.
http://www.businessinsider.com/most-dangerous-colleges-in-america-2012-11?op=1

so that's what .314 rapes per 1000 students... versus .267 in the general population at the worst school. OTOH, at UNM they had 2 rapes for 28,688... yielding .07/1000 and UNM is the 7th worst. Maybe there were none this past year, maybe 4... the numbers are so small, they blow up the data. and those are the 25 worst schools in the US.

Certainly the saying about lies and statistics holds true.

But to make a whole day of Frosh orientation about not doing what you have already be taught not to do? Might be overkill.

When do you teach children right from wrong? When they have already formed their opinions? You teach this stuff in GRADESCHOOL or earlier. Along with not stealing, and the rest.

OTOH, when do you teach young people about life? The kind that doesn't happen in statistics? The kind where the arrogant ladies man messed with one of your friends, when she said, "NO." And a certain crew of young men informed him it would be hard to play on his football scholarship with broken legs, so he should stick to girls who said "yes".

When do young women figure out that the bad boy who sets their skirts afire... acquired that reputation honestly, by siring numerous children he had no interest in knowing about, much less paying for. Or that the other girl they've been experimenting with is a stalker, intent to opening their minds to BDSM? [true story... do they call it rape when it's woman/woman? I do.]

When do both groups figure that there's a big wide world out there, and certain theories about it, are B.S.

Like you don't have to use your brain for anyting, 'cuz someone will protect you.

Do women in general really want to hear these questions while making out:
May I put my hand on your breast ?
May I put my hand up your skirt ?
May I take your panties off ?

And after women graduate from college, do they expect the same questions in the real world ?

A REAL college poster.

Doubting its veracity? You can buy it on their university website.

http://i.imgur.com/K0PhK4J.jpg

The idea that there's an epidemic of men raping women because they somehow didn't know it was wrong seems bizarre to me. If they don't know it's wrong, why do they try keep it secret when they do it? OK, except for cases like Steubenville, where the very structures of authority had been perverted to the point of covering up for the rapists. Is that the norm or an exception?

Posted by: Lobster at July 7, 2014 7:08 AM
_____________________________________

It's not that they don't know, on one level or another, that it's wrong. It's just that a great many teenage boys can't grasp (in part due to lack of education) that such-and-such is illegal - when, say, the couple has been dating for several months and the young man is "sick of waiting." Or when the man already had consensual sex with her on a previous occasion. Or when he's been doing all the paying on dates. Or when...the list goes on.

Keep in mind that if you're the parent of a teen boy who's never given you legal trouble - even in the form of one-time shoplifting - it may well be tempting to say nothing about rape laws and assume he's getting all the legal information he needs by osmosis. Wrong!

To give a different example, my mother never talked to me about drugs or even drinking - but then, she knew I just wasn't the type to take risks that way - in part because I liked solitude, so "peer pressure" was not an issue for me. (However, I suspect she was WAY in the dark when it came to the stats on kids who get killed, not by driving drunk, but by being the PASSENGERS of drunk teen drivers. Otherwise, she might well have said something to me - and she never did.)

And on the subject of "keeping it secret," I seem to remember that, in Steubenville, it was the ADULTS who tried to cover it up. The kids were pretty open about it, especially on social media. I'd guess that since they only used their fingers(?) on the comatose girl, they didn't grasp that it was anything more than harassment, legally - if that.

Not to mention that, aside from those predators who plan everything in advance and make sure no one is within earshot, if the man REALLY expected it to stay secret, chances are he wouldn't rape in the first place. After all, SHE's likely to talk!

"It's just that a great many teenage boys can't grasp (in part due to lack of education) that such-and-such is illegal - when, say, the couple has been dating for several months and the young man is 'sick of waiting.'"

You keep saying stuff like this, like men need to be sent off to re-education camps and given an electric shock every time someone says the word "rape" before they will learn it's morally wrong. And I keep asking myself: "what kind of untamed animals does Lenona think men are?" Becuase I knew rape was wrong before I really understood what sex was. The general moral principle that we don't force ourselves upon others, that we all learned at the age of four when we hit our little brother and got scolded by our parents, was enough. It flows from that. Anyone who says otherwise is an excuse-making narcissist.

Or are you suggesting that a whole bunch of normal sexual activities should be considered "rape"? That men should never, under any circumstances, be permitted to engage in hetrosexual sex without a signed and notarized contract spelling out exactly what will be done, when and where, and for how long? Just what the heck are you talking about? We aren't a bunch of slow children here... spit it out.

BTW, there were two other letters, too.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/letters

You have to scroll almost halfway down (tomorrow, you'll have to scroll lower). Chelsea Petersen's was striking - she pointed out that a mere 4% of men can't be responsible for all the rapes, reported and unreported, that happen.

(I also recommend two other letters on other subjects that are listed nearby - one, by Brenda Wright, has the headline "Blacks’ right to vote ‘no longer endangered’? Look again." The other is Veronica Barron's letter: "Whatever the buffer zone, activists’ behavior seems like harassment.")

First paragraph by Barron (it's about the abolished buffer zone at abortion clinics):

If a strange man followed a woman on the street, even after she rebuffed him, in a manner that caused her serious alarm, we would call that harassment, defined by Massachusetts law as “willfully and maliciously [engaging] in a knowing pattern of conduct” toward “a specific person” that “seriously [alarmed] that person and would cause a reasonable person substantial emotional distress.” If that same man defended his actions, saying, “I have a right to free speech. I’m only seeking a personal, caring, consensual conversation with this woman,” that would not excuse his harassing behavior...(snip)

In the meantime, I find it disturbing that Cathy Young doesn't seem to distinguish between rape and crimes of profit - as in, it's somehow normal and unpreventable for the heartless 4% of men to rape when they can, even though, unlike some thieves, they are not trying to avoid starvation or homelessness.

As I've mentioned before, not long ago, we USED to treat it casually when little boys tortured or even killed animals in cold blood (i.e., we would simply punish the boys and then forget it), but we now know that that behavior is likely a sign that the kid needs medical intervention - and fast. (Example: The seven-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed animals and grew up to be the well-known murderer.) Also, such kids should not be allowed to run freely until they are rehabilitated, if possible. Why, then, are parents given relatively little information by the media on how to spot the signs of their son's becoming a violent predator of women and how to nip the bad seed in the bud - or on the need to supervise them closely in the first place? Sure, women can protect themselves - sometimes. So can some animals. That's why people who torture animals typically choose those who can't fight back. Why the media discrepancy?

BTW, I don't remember witnessing women having catcalls thrown at them either - but maybe that's just my neighborhood. Besides, Dr. Helen Smith, for one, freely admitted in her book "Men on Strike" that it still happens - and then she had the nerve to scold the women who were angry about it, on the grounds that the construction men were doing dangerous work that most women won't do. I mean, aside from the fact that no one cares - or should care - to be grateful to rude individuals, per se, how many white-collar workers, including men, stop to pay homage to blue-collar workers, as a class, on a regular basis? I.e., it's about class, not gender.

Or that the other girl they've been experimenting with is a stalker, intent to opening their minds to BDSM? [true story... do they call it rape when it's woman/woman? I do.]

Now you've got me curious, care to share?

It's just that a great many teenage boys can't grasp (in part due to lack of education) that such-and-such is illegal - when, say, the couple has been dating for several months and the young man is 'sick of waiting.'

Bullshit, and what Cousin Dave said.

No means no, we all know this. Being incapable of saying yes or no means no.

The problem is these days yes means no if a woman decides it does.

I recall a new article out of the north east. Couple met in a bar, got drunk. She drove him home, she disable her alarm system, they had drunken sex, they had morning sex, they went out to brunch and had after brunch sex.

Her friends called her a slut and all of a sudden it was rape.

There was a case out of california, teenagers having sex, voluntary enthusiastic sex. Which she initiated, in the middle she says stop. HE STOPS.

They still charged him with rape, and he was convicted because somehow magically saying stop halfway thru makes everything she voluntarily participated in upto that point rape RETROACTIVELY.

When it come to the law and rules of behavior the need to be OBJECTIVE. But when it comes to rape the law is SUBJECTIVE, it doesn't matter what the truth of a situation is, what matters is how the woman feels.

We aren't a bunch of slow children here... spit it out.

Posted by: Cousin Dave at July 7, 2014 12:14 PM
__________________________________

You're pretty much the ONLY one here who seems to have regular trouble understanding anything I say or imply, so I'm not too concerned.

I already gave a couple of examples in the 11:43 post anyway - namely, the one about previous consensual sex and the one about Steubenville. Some boys just need to have the laws spelled out for them.

Besides (regarding hitting a little brother), no one likes being hit and most people understand that. However, even some ADULTS believe that if a woman is being hit by her husband and she doesn't leave, she must be enjoying it. (Camille Paglia once argued that most such women stick around, not out of fear of getting stalked and killed - or lack of money - but because they enjoy the "rough sex" and feel it's a good trade-off. Sheesh.) So is it hard to imagine that plenty of adults still believe that women enjoy being choked into submission as well, just because the element of sex is added?

And regarding the old sick joke: “Confucius say: if rape’s inevitable, relax and enjoy it,” see here:

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/if_its_inevitable_relax_and_enjoy_it_said_of_texas_weather

"The meteorologist for the local ABC television station in New York City, 'Tex' Antoine (who was raised in Texas), repeated this rape 'joke' on the air after a 1976 news report of a rape. He was suspended and then fired.

(What Antoine didn't know - not that it makes any difference - was that the victim was a very young child.)

"In March 1990, Republican Clayton Williams, Jr. was running against Democrat Ann Richards for Texas governor. Williams compared the Texas weather to rape—if it’s inevitable, then relax and enjoy it. Candidate Williams was criticized for the comment and an apology was issued, but it was one of several mistakes that cost him the election to Ann Richards."

(snip)

And finally, if you want proof that "educated" adults still have trouble believing in punishment for rapists - or watching sons for signs of dangerous mental disorders of any kind AND holding them responsible of any resulting behavior - check Google News for Boz Tchividjian (Billy Graham's grandson and the leader of a nonprofit called Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment). He's been investigating how Bob Jones "University" handled sexual abuse cases.

From the Christian Post:

"Two years after the rape, Landry (former BJU student and a Mennonite) said she recognized that she needed help and sought it from BJU and was referred to Jim Berg, the dean of students at the time.

"After telling Berg her story, Landry said he asked her if she had been drinking, smoking marijuana or had been 'impure.' He then asked her about her 'root sin.'

"He goes, 'Well, there's always a sin under other sin. There's a root sin,'" Landry recalled. "And he said, 'We have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape.' And I just ran."

No means no, we all know this.
_____________________________

Not George Will. Judging from his recent editorial, he seems to want to make rape laws complicated - as if it were some terrible legal burden for a man to listen when she says no clearly. A woman should not have to fight back - and risk injury - to prove it. If she takes him to court after not fighting, chances are there's a good reason she took it to court. (If your sister did that, wouldn't you assume that?)
______________________________

The problem is these days yes means no if a woman decides it does.
_____________________________

I never said cases like don't happen - or that they should. Just that two wrongs don't make a right.
_______________________________

When it come to the law and rules of behavior the need to be OBJECTIVE. But when it comes to rape the law is SUBJECTIVE, it doesn't matter what the truth of a situation is, what matters is how the woman feels.
_______________________________

Again, George Will didn't care what the truth was - he just felt the truth wasn't fair to the man. (As if there weren't different situations where a woman might be too terrified even to say no, and chances are even a teen boy would know she's terrified.)

It seems that "rape" is defined differently on college campus than on the street, and that feminists seem horrified if the discussion doesn't agree with logic.

Not defending oneself SHOULD make it harder to get a court conviction. If it does not then how should the assault be proven? Because she/he said it did? With her date? After dinner/drinks? Sounds like it's the opposite on college campus - she says so it happens (she thinks - too drunk to know).

Be frank with your children about the dangers of dating (as well as that it's their right to not be molested/beaten) and that you will trust them to tell you if something goes "wrong". Things should sort themselves out if all parties takes the assault seriously. (Just voicing the complaint should give everyone a heads-up and several heads-up equals a conviction/accident soon or later.)

We all know there are some sick people out there so nothing about this will or can be written so tightly that all bad actors/actresses are covered.

Lenona--- Rather than characterize the Will column, why don't you cite the exact words which you find troubling?

Again: DO NOT CHARACTERIZE.

Don't tell us what things MEAN. Don't worry about interpretations, either those of others or even your own.

Just list the precise wordings that you find troublesome. Cut 'n paste.

Okay?

Here's the Will column.

Thanks.

When do the TSA goons get such training?

@Lenona:

> And on the subject of "keeping it secret," I seem to remember that, in Steubenville, it was the ADULTS who tried to cover it up

That's exactly what I said (I used the phrase "structures of authority" - sorry, I didn't realize not everyone would understand that).

> And I keep asking myself: "what kind of untamed animals does Lenona think men are?" Becuase I knew rape was wrong before I really understood what sex was

Likewise. Imagine someone was going around saying "we should teach black people not to commit violence" - that is how it sounds to my ear when someone says "we should teach men not to commit rape". And there are people who say things like that. And surely it should be considered no more repulsive to be sexist than to be racist.

> no more repulsive

I mean 'no less' repulsive

I think Steubenville was more a lesson about the devaluing of a person that it was about what does/doesn't constitute rape. Mommas teach your boys to respect girls, all girls, not just the ones you want to date but even the ones that you think are trashy and would pass around if given the chance. (And likewise girls who can control a guy with a comethither glance). There is value in everyone, but not everyone thinks that way - and that is what I felt I saw when that rape trial unpeeled that onion. The boys videoed the sexual assault, passed the footage around, and left that child outside her house to freeze to death, which she nearly did. Then it seemed the townspeople seized on the notion that the girl was trashy and the boys were football gods, and oh my gosh this hussy was trying to besmirch their good football name. Every person deserves our decency, our humanity, not just the ones we THINK deserves it. Every one.

"That is unacceptable. Women are just as responsible for their actions as men"

And men are equally incapable of rational judgement while intoxicated. Two drunk people have sex, the man is held responsible although he's as wasted as the woman is...absolutely unacceptable.

Thank you Lobster. Rape of males somehow isn't an issue for feminists, is it? Joke about a woman being raped and you'll be burned at the stake though...

> And on the subject of "keeping it secret," I seem to remember that, in Steubenville, it was the ADULTS who tried to cover it up
______________________________

That's exactly what I said (I used the phrase "structures of authority" - sorry, I didn't realize not everyone would understand that).

Posted by: Lobster at July 7, 2014 3:13 PM
_____________________________

Sorry. Just wanted to make it clear that the kids DIDN'T make much, if any, attempt to cover it up - and more importantly, didn't quite realize that what they were doing just might be illegal in the first place. Whether this was because they thought they were restraining themselves in the first place, or because they were corrupted by their sense of athlete-entitlement and thought they could do no wrong, I couldn't tell you.

Dear Crid: First, as columnist Dan Savage likes to say:

"Google (expletive) exists."

Second, I'd rather not quote short paragraphs out of context if possible, and I think it's important to read the whole thing to understand Will's misguided context.

Young people deserve laws that are as simply written as possible, yes? Letting men believe that legally, no only means no sometimes, does them no favors. Once a woman says no, a man is out of luck if he doesn't stop. Simple enough. BTW, Amy agreed.

Not that we shouldn't also be educating girls not to twist the law whenever it suits them, just because they can get away with it. As Dan Savage also says, along with many others, regret is not rape. That does not mean that we can presume to know what is mere regret and what isn't when she DID say no.

BTW, is it REALLY necessary for me to spell out the following points?

Just because pretty much everyone here is smart, it doesn't change the fact that people who commit crimes - violent or not - tend to be somewhat dimwitted. While they're not usually cretinous enough to be unaware of what is general illegal behavior and what isn't, it would hardly be surprising if they were constantly unclear on the nuances - and/or prone to Wishful Thinking, as in "she can't say no to me, we already had sex yesterday! I'll do as I damn please - that can't be illegal on my part!" Not to mention that you don't have to watch "Goodfellas" to guess that men who might commit violent crimes are likely to have short fuses and take offense even when none was meant - and you can't always tell in advance who will be like that. That includes men who do not commit crimes of profit and are not serial predators, but who resent having to wait for permission in general.

My last point is, just because it's easy to surround yourself only with smart people like yourself doesn't mean that the world is like that - or that there aren't more new, dumb teens every day who are very much in need of legal education on a yearly basis. (It's been said, after all, that men tend to be either very high or very low on the IQ scale, with relatively few in the middle.)

BTW, is it REALLY necessary for me to spell out the following points?

Yes, because otherwise you are just gesturing, and saying: "that... bothers me."

Um, what. The sky? The... rocks? The forest? I know! It must be the trees!?!

It is not self evident what problem you have with Will's column, so please, spell it out.

So, these dimwitted criminals... in what universe do you think they care about what you think? In what universe, will your condescending education change their minds?

High and low IQ, eh? How refreshingly sexist of you.

"Context" is not a factor. The link's right there for all to see. It's a column, not a whole shelf of books. You can cite as much as you like.

I mean, you did PRECISELY what you were challenged not to do... You gave a bunch of responses to the contents of you own imagination. You're afraid of saying what you really think.

I bet there's a reason for that. I bet you oughta be.

"Context" is not a factor. The link's right there for all to see. It's a column, not a whole shelf of books. You can cite as much as you like.

I mean, you did PRECISELY what you were challenged not to do... You gave a bunch of responses to the contents of you own imagination. You're afraid of saying what you really think.

I bet there's a reason for that. I bet you oughta be.

There was a stir on social media networks last winter when a woman photographer in Philadelphia snapped pics of men who catcalled at her. She would either take the pic right away or ask them if they would pose for a pic. I can't link to it, but it was interesting.

Honestly, Lenny---

> "Google (expletive) exists."

Nobody on this planet who loves you enough to research your arguments for you, to guess which data you think is relevant, and then respond to that.

Burger King exists, too. Heidegger was stunned by the hermeneutics of the Whopper, though he thought the part about mayonnaise must have been a translation error.

I mean, what's your (expletive/fucking) point?

> Camille Paglia once argued that most such
> women stick around, not out of fear of
> getting stalked and killed - or lack of
> money - but because they enjoy the "rough
> sex" and feel it's a good trade-off. Sheesh.

She "once argued" no such thing, certainly not about "most such women," and your quotation marks around "rough sex" make me think you don't spend a lot of time talking to grownups. If Swissy offered you $10,000 for a proper citation of the CP "argument" you described, you nonetheless wouldn't have taco money for the weekend.

You read what you want to read, no matter what's on the page in front of you... And you want to read things about adult life that scare little girls.

Lenona, do you really think that people rob, steal and burglarize only because they're going hungry? Maybe sometimes, but from the reading I've done a lot of criminals tend to have an "honest work is for chumps and weaklings" mentality.

Also, FYI, there was no "cover-up" in Steubenville. Ariel Levy's piece in The New Yorker last year sets the record straight: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/05/130805fa_fact_levy?currentPage=all

We aren't a bunch of slow children here... spit it out.

Posted by: Cousin Dave at July 7, 2014 12:14 PM
__________________________________

You're pretty much the ONLY one here who seems to have regular trouble understanding anything I say or imply, so I'm not too concerned.

I'd rather you spell it out as well before I just write you off as a sexist female chauvinist.

"I'd rather you spell it out as well before I just write you off as a sexist female chauvinist."

Why wait?

Why wait?

Because unlike feminists we actually wait for proof.

"Chelsea Petersen's was striking - she pointed out that a mere 4% of men can't be responsible for all the rapes, reported and unreported, that happen."

Whoo, Lenona, you've gone so far off into the leftist weeds here I don't know if there's any hope here. Besides your evident confusion of the difference between law and morals, you seem to have some magical way of knowing how many unreported rapes there are, for some sufficiently expansive definition of "rape". Yes, we all know that every woman in the world is raped ten times every day; they are so occupied with being raped that they barely have time to go to the bathroom, much less be productive members of society. And yes, we all know that little boys need to be kept drugged and tied to their chairs to keep them from killing the whales and raping Gaia just for funsies. But can you, just one, look at one man somewhere, anywhere, and say to yourself, "That person is a human being just like I am?" Just once?

It is not self evident what problem you have with Will's column, so please, spell it out.
__________________________________

Quite simply, that he could, in theory, have chosen to complain about some case where the sober woman didn't even SAY no to her boyfriend and then cried rape in court, but instead, he chose to complain about a case where she did say no - again, as if it were some terrible legal burden for a man to respect a woman's "no." Do we really want to teach teen boys that they can't help themselves?

I can't help but suspect that the former situation is so rare (especially on college campuses), it would have been too time consuming for Will to find one.
___________________________________

So, these dimwitted criminals... in what universe do you think they care about what you think? In what universe, will your condescending education change their minds?
____________________________________

Was it really so hard to figure out that I was talking about trying to set young people straight while they're still in school and living with guardians? That is, on average, they may not be malicious, per se, but young people are notoriously selfish - and prone to wishful thinking. Not to mention that any psychologist will tell you that it's our actions that mold our attitudes more often than the other way around, which is why, to make kids law-abiding, they often have to have a fear of the law put into them before they can be trusted not to break it, when unsupervised. (Not that I felt that way when *I* was in high school - I remember being offended by a 1982 Ann Landers column in which she told "Massachusetts Miseries" that it would be good for her two sons - 8 and 11 - to visit their 20-year-old brother in prison because seeing him locked up would be a good if harsh lesson for them in what not to do with their lives. My knee-jerk reaction back then was: "Why is Landers so convinced that all kids are future criminals? That's horribly rude of her.")
_________________________________

High and low IQ, eh? How refreshingly sexist of you.

Posted by: swissarmyd at July 7, 2014 7:04 PM
________________________________

You mean you haven't heard? The other part of that theory is that women tend to be in the middle range, not at one extreme or another, which is why we still don't have a female Einstein. (It's also likely why girls often get the mistaken impression that girls are smarter on average, since it's too easy for them to look at only those boys who do lethal "Jackass" type stunts or similar things.)

Lenona, do you really think that people rob, steal and burglarize only because they're going hungry? Maybe sometimes, but
_______________________________

I didn't say "only," I said "unlike SOME thieves."

And when people say "poverty breeds crime," I think it's safe to say they're talking primarily about crimes of profit. Other crimes can happen due to either a sense of powerlessness OR a sense of entitlement - the stereotype of student star athletes as rapists, for one, is based on the idea that, due to their celebrity treatment, they believe they can do no wrong and no one has the right to cross their will. Again, that's a stereotype - but it does happen.

To Crid, re Paglia:

According to Newsweek, it was in her 1992 book "Sex, Art, and American Culture."

I DID get a couple of words wrong.

From the book review:

http://www.newsweek.com/intellectual-amazon-198436

...(Paglia says): "Feminism, with its solemn Carry Nation repressiveness, does not see what is for men the eroticism or fun element in rape..." Of course feminists see it, but what irks Paglia is that they define it as misogyny, not eroticism. More offensive to Paglia than rape, at least judging from the amount of anger she displays, is the feminist notion that rape is a crime of violence, not of sex. For Paglia, sex is sex, "a dark and turbulent power," no matter how it's negotiated. On the messy subject of rapes that sure look like violence - the ones that are accompanied by savage beatings, for instance - she is uncharacteristically silent. Battered wives? According to Paglia, many stick around for the "kinky" sex...

(snip)

From the book review:

http://www.newsweek.com/intellectual-amazon-198436"

A book review isn't the book. Let's hear what Paglia actually wrote,

Lenona, you seem very attached to second hand sources that characterize and interpret primary sources, often wrongly.

(It's been said, after all, that men tend to be either very high or very low on the IQ scale, with relatively few in the middle. ~ Posted by: lenona at July 7, 2014 6:54 PM

Men and women have roughly the same average IQ - with men having a higher standard deviation.

Since (according to Chebyshev) roughly 67% of a normal (bell curve) population is within ±1 standard deviation and 99% is within ±3 standard deviations, you can see that with a higher standard deviation, the IQ range for men is wider than for women - meaning more men at the top and the bottom - but still the bulk of the population in the middle (with a wider middle for men).

From an AEI article on gender IQ differences:

"Population Sex Differences in IQ at Age 11: The Scottish Mental Survey 1932," published in 2003 by Intelligence, the journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research ... the authors of the study concluded that “there were no significant mean differences in cognitive test scores between boys and girls, but there was a highly significant difference in their standard deviations. Boys were over-represented at the low and high extremes of cognitive ability.

The statistical evidence from the Scottish IQ tests showing that male intelligence is significantly more variable than female intelligence is exactly what former Harvard President Larry Summers was referring to when he said:

"It does appear that on many, many different human attributes—height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability—there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means—which can be debated—there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population."

> I DID get a couple of words wrong.

No, Kitten, you got them ALL wrong. Those aren't Camille Paglia's words. She never said anything like that. It's a review, and it's a shitty one from the popular press.

And we should note that, unusually for a book review, it's unsigned: The people selected for those typically want to be admired for their erudition. But the person who wrote this one knew he wasn't going to want to be challenged for what he said in it... Any more than you wanted to be challenged for your words yesterday.

You've built your beliefs around them anyway, because they were easy for you to understand, and they made you feel better about your own limited insight.

Paglia had just written what was to be the academic book of the (young) decade, a decade (we presume) in your own adult life. It was a book about sex and art with implications for charity, literature, politics, education, and much of the remainder...

But you couldn't find the time. So, like I said, you saw the words you wanted to see.

And there we have it! Conventional, sub-feminist American womanhood at its most isolated, timid, and naive.

Rock On, Sister Fear-bot!





Or read the Goddam book, like an adult.

If you don't, don't tell people you did.

Sheezus. This is a real pattern in your thinking:

> Quite simply, that he could,
> in theory, have

1. You insist on simplification.

2. You cocoon your thoughts in a theoretical posture.

And even then you won't quote the actual words of George Will's which offend you... But nothing could be simpler or more practical.

It's becoming apparent that you have no complaints at all. You probably agree with everything in the editorial... We have no reason to think you don't.

After all these years, there's nothing quite as sweet.

She doesn't get any of Swissy's taco money, either.

Strictly from hunger.

You want to have a discussion OK then

If a girl says no, does that mean stop everything and leave or just stop progressing?

How long does that no remain in effect?

Can she change her mind?

If she can change her mind why cant he try to progress?

How much alcohol is enough to invalidate consent?

One drop, 12 shots?

How much alcohol is enough to invalidate a mans consent?

Why is it people who purport to be advocates of womens equality seek to ensure women can never be responsible for their own actions?

Crid,

This is for you;
i.imgur.com/Ie0yD.gif

Why is it people who purport to be advocates of womens equality seek to ensure women can never be responsible for their own actions?

They purport to be for women's rights. The women's responsibilities movement doesn't exist yet. It probably never will.

See also.

Amy said:
"Sorry, but I have boobs the size of Mars times two and lived in New York City and walked, biked, and roller-skated everywhere, and never experienced this supposed Sno-Globe of catcalls so many women supposedly do."

In the early seventies, when I was a young turk, they had classes in Century City on how to look at the women at lunchtime without getting caught. I sometimes miss those days and the boobs. Never heard a catcall.

Lenona--

If you seriously, seriously want things to go better for women, you should read Paglia.

If you don't want to read the Big One, and aren't interest in art theory or other cleverness, then you should read one of the small books... The breezy collections of essays that got published after they realized Personae was having a huge impact.

Don't let other people read it for you.

You'll see that it has very little to do with Newsweek's review.