Iâd like to start by acknowledging your last point first, because itâs something that irritated me and I want to get it out of the way so we can have a purely logic-based argument here.Â
I do not appreciate you explaining to me like Iâm a five year old what ad hominem fallacy is. I, like most human beings, understand that insults are not an argument, and I do not need you to come in and explain this basic concept to me as if you are some supremely rational being that needs to teach me how to be a sensible person. I know that youâre just trying to keep things rational and I can appreciate that as Iâve given people similar lectures, but I only do so when their ad hominem is directed to me, or to someone that clearly did not do anything to merit that ad hominem. Itâs just that I am a person who prides themselves on making sure that all arguments on their blog stay logical and avoid the petty domineering tactics that too many on this website love to use, and I felt it was condescending for you to assume that I do not know how to argue rationally because you donât have the context as to why I insulted this person.
I think we both agree the ad hominem fallacy is conflating insults for an argument. Insulting someone itself is not ad hominem fallacy, itâs when you do so in place of an argument that it becomes fallacious. As you can see form my post, I clearly state my argument first, and only insult thatalbanianguy in the end. You say that me insulting thatalbanianguy shows that I donât want to have a rational conversation, and therefore I shouldnât expect a rational response from him. Again, I think this is pretty presumptuous. I rationally stated my point first, he responded in a way I would say is pretty destructive to rational discourse (misrepresenting my argument in a way clearly shows I he did not read it) and leaving âAre you serious?â as the only thing he says on the matter. I responded by again clarifying my point, only with an insult at the end. If thatalbanianguy wanted to refute my argument rationally, he could have done so to my first response, AND he could even do so to second response. The fact that I insulted him at the end does not make it magically impossible to refute all that logical discrouse that came before the insult. The insult was not used in place of an argument--I was just insulting him, straight up. It was an argument, and then me insulting him. Therefore, it is not fallacious or inhibiting discourse. In fact, the âall that insultingâ was just a more âfuckâ-ridden/angry way of telling him the same thing you have just told me. For context, that was the third response to me that day in which thatalbanianguy  had basically reblogged what I said and added nothing but either ad hominem, âlol y u so madâ or, a deliberate misrepresentation of my argument that most of the time included things I had specifically refuted in my points which PROVES he doesnât even read things before mindlessly disagreeing with them just because he thinks the person making the point is an SJW. I know this because I follow him. Thatâs the kind of person he is. You say the problem with ad hominem is that it shows youâre not willing to have a rational dsicussion and you wonât get one back either. But thatalbanianguy has shown me over and over that he is not capable of responding in a way that isnât a ridiculous ad-hominem, which by both your logic and mine, shows me he is not interested in having a rational conversation. If you read what I said to him at the end, âAll that insultingâ that you accused me of doing is just me (angrily) accusing him of not seriously wanting a rational conversation because of what he has shown me. I know Iâm not going to get a rational response from him, so I donât bother pretending to not be annoyed with this attitude--wouldnât you agree that it is very annoying when someone shows such a blatant disregard for rational discourse? Isnât this why you are cautioning me against doing the same thing? Iâm sorry to be spending so long on such a minor point of yours but this is just how many words itâs taking me to explain that you are accusing me of not wanting rational discourse because I accused someone else of not wanting rational discourse (and then insulted them for it because I knew there was no chance of getting a rational response from then anyway). I hope you see why this annoyed me and again I apologized that it took so many words to say.
Now, to get into your response. Because it is a long one, Iâll use numbers to denote which paragraph Iâm responding to:
1. I think it is very optimistic of you to think the only reason I think âpeople like this existâ is because Iâm misinterpreting what theyâre saying. I used to think so too, every time I saw arguments about rape culture. And itâs true that people go overboard in saying that things like telling people to be careful when theyâre out is âvictim-blamingâ. I think I made it clear in my first response that I referring to people who seem to think that the fact that someone got raped is somehow proof that they were too dumb to stop it. I mentioned people who claim that if they were in the situation where a mass murder is taking place, they would have heroically beaten up the perpetrator and saved the day. These people exist. If you want, I can find you some screencaps. Itâs hard to misinterpret what theyâre saying because of how clear this point is: If someone says, âThose people should have fought back, I would have beaten up the rapist/murderer myself!â how could this possibly be meant in any other way? These are the comments Iâm talking about. This leads to my next point.
2. I donât understand. Is this paragraph directed towards me? I agree with all of those things. Again, if itâs an argument meant for me, I have to wonder why you are making it, because I specified in my first response (the one to the OP) that I am talking specifically about the people who think they are superior to the victim in intelligence/bravery and make bold assertions about how they would certainly have been better off in the victimâs situation because of this superiority. I have nothing to refute this paragraph with because itâs refuting things I didnât say. All I have to say about it is that I agree that telling people to be careful certainly isnât victim-blaming and I do have a post where I argue this to someone who used that âteach men not to rape instead of teaching women not to get raped!â argument you were talking about.
â You state that a rape culture promotes the idea that only those who are foolish, stupid, do not pay attention, or are bereft of common sense get raped.â
Well, I would say more that the idea is the culture. I donât think people think these things because we live in a rape culture, I think that the term ârape cultureâ refers to the fact that so many people say these things.
 â would also add the statement that a rape culture must also blame the victim for the rape itself. Nothing â
Lots of people do. Legally, society doesnât, and sure most people donât either, but lots of people, the people who say the things I address in my first and second responses, do. My point isnât that EVERYONE collectively blames victims for their rape. It is that the pervasiveness of these ideas that do blame the victim for their rape is what people are referring to when they say ârape cultureâ. It seems like we are about to get into an argument about the definition of rape culture, and I hope thatâs not the case because that kind of argument goes nowhere fast.
3.5 (the middle of your third paragraph). Your example statement about how not being drunk at a bar alone can minimize your chance of rape is fine,as you said. I am talking about more extreme statements. People who claimed they would have fought the rapist, or somehow taken precautions that most people just donât take in reality.
thatalbanianguyâs comments make a convenient example:
He says victims are â people being retarded and putting themselves in a scenario that they think they could have magically escaped from â
 Would you really call getting drunk at a bar alone RETARDED? Iâm sure most people have done that at some point. Iâm not saying itâs safe, but this kind of intelligence-politics doesnât sound like itâs coming from a place of concern to me. There is a difference between reminding people to be safe and acting as if theyâre RETARDED and ASKING FOR TROUBLE because they didnât take full precautions, as you said. I understand that itâs common sense not to get drunk at a bar alone, but this kind of attitude dehumanizes victims in a weirdly eugenicist way: âwell, they got raped/killed because they were being stupidâ. Itâs an unrealistic way of looking at crimes and definitely seems to be saying that only those dumb enough to deserve it get raped/killed. My response to thatalbanianguy was more about murders because it illustrated the attitude Iâm talking about better. If a case of rape does mention that the victim was out drunk and alone in a bar, itâs one thing to say that avoiding this is the safer route. However, itâs another for a person to make assumptions about the victimâs intelligence because surely they would never be in such a dangerous situation! Itâs not like that. The average person is not constantly taking precautions against crime. I mean, to use your locks/robbery analogy: A person who keeps their doors locked when they go out could say to a person who DOESNâT keep their doors locked that keeping your doors locked is a good way to minimize the chance of robbery. If unlocked-door person gets robbed, locked-door person could give them this advise in a gesture of genuine concern. However, letâs say locked-door person instead chooses to use the robbery of unlocked-door person as an opportunity to brag about how much more intelligent they are because they lock their doors, and that unlocked-personâs robbery is proof that only the stupid are robbed, this is fallacious. Why? Letâs say locked-doors person gets robbed because someone breaks in through their windows. That leaves them open to a person with fortified anti-breakin windows (idk if thatâs a thing but I hope you get the idea) mocking them for being stupid enough to get robbed, just as locked-doors person did to unlocked-doors person.  The problem with the attitude that rape victims are all just âretarded enough to put themselves in  that situationâ is that it creates a false dichotomy of dumb people who get raped and smart people who have the sense to avoid these situations. There are certain easily-avoidable situations that itâs sensible to  consider dangerous, and that is not victim-blaming. It is fine to tell someone with unlocked doors that they should try locking up to avoid robbery, or even that their robbery was easily avoidable. The problem arises when you make the claim that you have not yet been robbed because you are intelligent--youâd have to be certifiably the most paranoid person on the planet in order to actually be able to claim that youâre smart enough not to get robbed.Â
A lot of my post is also focused on people who have this kind of attitude towards victims of murder, which better shows that this attitude is only meant to denigrate the victims for no reason other than to make the commentor feel superior and convinced that they are therefore safe. Because, really, in mass murders, often the only crime committed by the victims is that of happening to be in a school or building the day of the murder. Thatâs why I used it in my argument--itâs a better illustration of the kind of attitude Iâm talking about, because with things like rape there really are ways to try to avoid it and therefore a gray area exists between victim-blaming and just giving good advice. With murder, not so much.Â
3.9 (the conclusion of your 3rd paragraph). Yes, I see very well the difference between the two statements. Again, it really just seems like youâre arguing to me things that I already agree with. It seems you think that Iâm arguing that every instance of staying âyou can minimize your chance of being raped by doing this/not doing thatâ is blatant victim-blaming. I guess that was my fault for not being clear enough in my first post about what kind of victim-blaming I am talking about and hopefully this response clears it up.
4. â ârape is inevitable. It has always been in existence, and we donât have a way to completely eliminate it. But no one should be raped. We should focus on reducing rape as much as possible even if we canât eliminate itââ
This is an argument I have literally made in another post. (And thatalbanianguy replied by taking offence to the  fact that I said there are certain societal notions about rape/women that, if corrected, could possibly reduce rape in some cases . Not that it matters, but since you think his statement to me here was simply about how not every instance of advising precaution is victim-blaming, and your first major point was that I misread this statement as something worse than it really was, I think this further contextualizes my response to him and why I do not believe I was misreading his response).
So, again, I really think weâre agreeing here, but that I wasnât clear enough in my first response and now weâre having an argument about what I did/didnât mean/say. These kinds of statements are not what I am talking about--this one is one that I have even made myself on the same day as making this post. Statements that are clearly unrealistic and imply that the victim was raped because of some sort of inferiority that is in reality how pretty much every human would act in the victimâs situation, such as comments like âIf that were me, I would have beaten up the rapist/got out of his car/seen it coming!âÂ
I brought up the inevitability of rape because I see people claiming a victim got raped because they were being stupid even when the situation leading to the rape is not even mentioned. In many cases, the victim did nothing wrong and the rape was simply inevitable or at least could only have been prevented by the victim never leaving their house, and yet, people assume that any instance of rape is a result of being stupid. For example, a while ago I was talking to a person in my class that I did not know very well, with a group of other people. If I remember correctly, we were talking about abortion. Someone said, âWhat if a girl gets raped and it leaves her pregnant?â to which that person replied, âWell, she shouldnât have been being such a slut then!âÂ
I know this is really âyour word against mineâ about what people do/donât say about rape victims, but Iâm not saying that 100% of society thinks this way about rape victims. Iâm simply that when people do refer to ârape cultureâ, they are referring to this surprisingly common) notion, not to some kind of imagined North American Sharia law. I hope that clarifies things. And yes, I know I said â90% of peopleâ which confused things further. I just meant âa substantial amount of people compared to the amount that does not hold these ideasâ, not literally 9 out of 10 people. I apologize for that.
5. Basically this entire paragraph is addressing things I never said.
 â We do not live in a rape culture. â
Thing that I did not say #1. Iâve already specified what I meant by ârape cultureâ enough in this response so Iâm sure youâre sick of hearing it by now but at least Iâve clarified what I meant, and it was not this. I think you saw the words ârape cultureâ and assumed I have the same definition of it as most anti-sjs think feminists do, but my entire point in my first response was that rape culture does not mean that society encourages/does not punish rape but rather refers to the notions I addressed above.
5.1 Â â Not even by your extremely loose and liberal interpretation of the term even without my addition. â
The definition I gave of it is the pervasiveness of the notions addressed above and your âadditionâ was already included in my original definition of rape culture:
â People just donât want to believe that awful shit like rape and murder can happen to ANYONE, even them, at any time, so they all want to make up some shit in their heads about how the victim probably deserved it/was too stupid to prevent it. That way, they rationalize away that fear that anything can happenâtheyâre sure nothing will happen to them because THEYâRE smart/careful/whatever. THIS IS RAPE CULTURE. â
Your addition was that rape culture has to blatantly blame the victim, right? And you gave the example of someone saying that a rape victim was asking to get raped by being stupid. Well, thatâs explicitly included in the phrase: Â Â
â by [believing] the victim probably deserved it/was too stupid to prevent it. â
 I think the confusion comes from you believing that I think we live in some monstrous rape-apologist society when really I said that many people blame the victim without thinking critically about if they would really have done anything differently.
â Rapists are generally blamed for the crime of rape to the degree that individuals who are accused of rape without evidence are found inevitably guilty in the court of public opinion. â
Yes, because rape is illegal and considered bad. Never in my post did I say that people LIKE rape. I think I clarified that here:
   â âwe donât live in a rape culture because there are laws against rape!â God, I donât understand why people need to be so fucking literal. Itâs the same with the âoppressionâ thing, just people nitpicking about words. Sure, most people see rape as BAD. Thatâs not what rape culture is about. Rape culture is the attitude we have towards the victim and the crime. â
I really canât think of any other way to respond than to direct you to where I said the very thing that you are trying to convince me of.Â
 Also, people believing rape victims without evidence is a separate issue from the one at hand: Weâre talking about victim-blaming, which you can only do if you believe a rape happened in the first place.Â
â Thereâs a rousing debate about which is worse rape or murder which points out that the crime is not in fact accepted or socially ignored as it likely would be in a rape culture. Some individuals accused of rape are even attacked and killed by mobs of protesters because of the perceived horrific nature of their possible crime. Child-rapists are often attacked and killed by cellmates or other unrelated inmate in prison. Absolutely none of this illustrates the idea that victims are blamed for their rape, held to be responsible for their rape, or that their rape is condoned. â
Again, see:Â â Sure, most people see rape as BAD. Thatâs not what rape culture is about.â
â Finally, I already explained that rape culture is not literally 'a culture that NORMALIZES, CONDONES, and even sometimes PROMOTES rapeâ â
Most people with the attitudes I described think rape/murder is bad or else they wouldnât be so concerned with whether or not it could happen to them. And most of these people probably would see it as tragic and horrible if someone was walking in broad daylight on a crowded street got dragged into an ally and raped. Itâs just that as soon as they have something to nitpick at, they can rationalize the horribleness away by using the victimâs supposed stupidity to assure themselves that it would never happen to them/doesnât happen to good people. Itâs a coping mechanism that they employ BECAUSE they think rape is so horrible, not because they think rape is good.Â
At this point, I am wondering if you even read my arguments, too, or if Iâm really that bad at getting them across. You are refuting things that I never said and âdisagreeingâ with me about things I explicitly stated I agree with you on. Iâm very confused.Â
Also, child rape is treated very differently from adult rape for obvious reasons. There arenât children getting drunk alone at bars.
Thereâs nothing else to refute here because youâre simply talking about things I never said. I will once again summarize my point: people who argue that ârape culture doesnât exist because we have laws against it/rape is seen as bad!â--and go on to say that people who believe in rape culture are deluded--are misunderstanding the issue and misrepresenting the arguments of those who believe in it. In my opinion, the term ârape cultureâ refers to the surprisingly pervasive attitude many take towards victims of not just rape but also crimes such as murder, where the crime is rationalized away by dehumanizing the victim into someone that was âstupid enough to get raped/too cowardly to fight the murdererâ  without any critical thinking about whether or not the crime was really easily preventable, or whether or not the commentor would have fared any better in that situation themselves. It is the attitude that oversimplifies crime into the punishment the world gives to profoundly stupid people for their blatant lack of intelligence/common sense/precaution/martial arts skills (?) rather than something that can happen to anyone and that most people are not reasonably equipped to prevent entirely/deal with.Â
What I did not say: The West is a rape-loving culture where everyone loves rape and sees rape as a great, positive thing and rapists are rewarded while the victims are publicly stoned as an example for others who dare get themselves raped. Iâm not aware that rape is illegal and that most find it one of the most disgusting crimes that can be committed. We might as well live under Sharia law. THE WEST LOVES RAPE!
So, I will leave it at that. I hope I clarified my points because this was really a bizarre argument for me, seeing you argue my own arguments back to me. I apologize for any confusion caused by vagueness on my part and I thank you for your thoughtful and civil response, but unfortunately, it seems we have both wasted our time here. Cheers.