Are you rape cultured?

This question has been on my mind since Liza's Headband linked his friend Aaron Bady's post "Woody Allen's Good Name" published on the blog The New Inquiry on Feb. 2.

[Sidebar: I have to say I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE the tote bag for sale on that blog, which they refer to as the Limited Edition The New Inquiry Misandry Blog. I adore it. I worship that tote bag they way j'adore Valerie Solanas's 1967 S.C.U.M Manifesto, which is a fabulous title even if you don't know the acronym stands for "Society for Cutting Up Men." I have always been thrilled by that kind of radical second wave feminist over-the-top pontificating. It's really too bad Valerie went on to shoot Andy Warhol, an event from which the artist never truly recovered, but I suppose in many ways the event was a foregone conclusion if not the target. But I digress, end of sidebar.]

Anyway, the writer Aaron Bady is a white post-doc fellow teaching African literature somewhere in Texas (natch) where he probably can't do too much damage. And I feel free to make this assessment of him because I have no power over him, I have no influence over his career. It is worth reading his lengthy take-down of anybody who does not feel exactly the same way as he does about the charges against Woody Allen if only to see in action the kind of syllogistic reasoning that would normally get a scholar laughed right out of a peer review. But that's okay, because this is just a blog, not anything to be peer reviewed, obviously.

It's already been described beautifully by others on this board that his reasoning about who he "believes" in the Farrrow-Allen mess doesn't matter but he's going to tell you anyway and if you disagree with his conclusion, you are silencing a child victim and if you can see that, you have been "rape cultured."

That's right, you or I or anybody else who doesn't arrive at the exact same conclusion as he has been rape cultured. Do you feel as if you are rape cultured? I know there are certain words and phrases that come into and out of fashion in the hallowed halls of academe, and certainly "rape culture" must be one of them.

Like the least intellectually challenging of academic writers, Bady does not explicate "rape culture" because, you know, if you don't know what the phrase means by it -- or worse you want to laugh at him for invoking it -- THEN YOU HAVE BEEN RAPE CULTURED.

Again, I wonder, does anybody else here feel rape cultured? I wonder if Bady would join this board to give us the benefit of his sparking synapses.


link to poorly reasoned article but check out that tote bag

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Updated On: 2/4/14 at 03:49 PM

Yes. I'm sorry the post is so long. I just LOVE that tote bag.

Are you rape cultured Carlos?

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I'm not sure if Aaron Bady identifies as a man, that pronoun decision is up to s/him. In hris photo on the blog s/her does have a big thick beard, and I realize my presumption is heavily binary. I do wonder why shr/he feels "empowered" to label anybody else as "rape cultured" with a presumed understanding about what that term means.


PS Her or his dog is ADORABLE.

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Updated On: 2/4/14 at 04:01 PM

Que lastima

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Namo, I had the same reaction to that article.

What bothers me is that most people who question Dylan's account almost always qualify their comments with the fact that ultimately no one knows what actually happened. We do not dismiss the account, we simply recognize that we don't know what happened and therefore can not pass judgement.

On the other hand, most people who believe Dylan's account to be true (not just in her mind, but literally factual) refuse to be willing to accept that there are two sides to this issue.

That kind of double standard annoys the hell out of me.

And as far as "rape culture" goes, I didn't understand it when I read it in the article and I still don't. Is it supposed to imply that we live in a culture where rape is accepted and the victim is blamed most of the time? I mean, maybe in some extreme Middle Eastern countries that's the case, but here? No.

Perhaps he's referring to those couple of cases where high school sports players raped unconscious girls and allegedly were protected by their coaches. If so, a couple of coaches does not a culture make.

So if someone can elucidate what "rape culture" is and support the explanation with statistics I would be much appreciative.

And before everyone goes all bat**** condemning me as a misogynist (I most certainly am not) please don't forget that rape is not an exclusively male on female crime.

You can look at the Catholic church to see that.

The Catholic church....now there's an organization that could be deemed a rape culture.

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Updated On: 2/4/14 at 04:15 PM

no problemo mi cara es tu cama con un burrito

^ L M F P R A O ! ! !

I don't get this "rape culture" label...and I agree with tazzy:

We do not dismiss the account, we simply recognize that we don't know what happened and therefore can not pass judgement.

Perhaps he's referring to those couple of cases where high school sports players raped unconscious girls and allegedly were protected by their coaches. If so, a couple of coaches does not a culture make.

Or the media that laments the fact that those boys' football careers are over, but doesn't show much sympathy for the girl they raped.

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I can definitely see how boys and most importantly, football playing boys, are culturally privileged and how people like Camille Paglia dismissing rape as part of a real culture of men and women is counter-feminist and barely even human.

I just would like to hear some sort of explanation of Bady's assertion that if you don't feel exactly the same way as him about the Farrow/Allen case, you have been "rape cultured." I would like to know how he turned that into a verb and what that verb means to him.


ETA Carlos, he tweeted the charge of me being a crazy google stalker on his twitter account, which featured a link back to this thread. I'd like to thank Liza's Headband for doing his best to apparently try to foster some dialogue between Bady and the "rape cultured" community. At least, I think it was Liza's Headband and I am assuming that was his motivation for telling Bady about this thread.

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Updated On: 2/4/14 at 04:37 PM

But to be fair, by his definition (whatever that may be) I am rape cultured. So all bets are off.

I wish Liza's Heaband would show Bady how to become a member here so we could further explicate his analysis of this issue. I'm sure he would not choose the screen name 7brides7bros.

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Oh, that essay is a HOOT! I can't wait to hear about how all libruls will blindly jump on board with this brand of "leftist" nonsense. Basically, this guy is saying you're either with her or against her and he's the one to label you accordingly. He's certainly brandishing his ignorance, but the vampires are a product of his delusional ego.

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Namo. While I'm flattered that the scope on your sniper rifle has put me in its crosshairs for your own personal entertainment on this chilly Tuesday night, I wouldn't know Aaron Bady if I bumped into him on the street.

If you took the time to actually read my original post, I said a friend on Facebook had posted that particular blog post. Never did I suggest that the friend was the writer. The friend who posted it is a dear friend who went through her own trauma of being sexually assaulted as a child. She was silenced and ignored once brave enough to become open and honest about it because the assailant was a revered member of the community and she had no physical evidence. So surely there is no way he could have ever molested her. Right? Huh. The parallels are uncanny.

Unless, of course, she was brainwashed by her mother. I suppose it's possible there are a bunch of grown women running around out there just throwing out sexual assault accusations because their mothers brainwashed them. You never know....

Ohhhh, that makes sense, LH. I thought the writer was a bit strident for someone as famously centrist as yourself to be friends. But I am curious. Are you saying you did not inform him of this thread, because he found out about it lickity split?

I feel terrible for your survivor friend. I'm surprised she liked Bady's blog post, since it is filled with so much triggering language. "Triggering language" is one of the very latest things, I am told by my friends in academe, the hottest of the contemporary accusations.

Speaking of triggering language, I have been bothered by the fact that I responded to his mention of me and his link to this thread and I couldn't place my finger on it as to why. Then it hit me! The first thing Bady did when posting about this thread was to accuse me of being a predator! A "crazy stalker" for clicking on the link handily provided in the margins right next to his blog post! One hates to fall into the wrong style of language, but if one is going to post a highlighted link to one's Twitter account one is really asking for it… to be clicked, I mean.

So it made me wonder: Is it being "rape cultured" to think differently from Bady or is it being "rape cultured" to use the loaded language of "crazy stalker" about somebody who read a post and responded to it? Now, obviously Bady is a promiscuous user of social media, at least Twitter, upon which he has posted more than 45 THOUSAND tweets. Let us pause a moment and mediate on that number. Over 45 THOUSAND tweets. So clearly this is a man who throws just about everything at the wall and I am sure once in a while some of it sticks. But a few posts before the one he linked to this thread, he frustratingly posted looking for handouts for his students who don't know what close reading is. Hmmmm.

This is particularly delicious to me because in the blog post he made it clear that it didn't matter what he thought at all because he had no power in Woody Allen's life. However, if you disagree with his conclusions YOU have been "rape cultured." How closely are we supposed to look at his work? One pass through and one click and I am a "crazy stalker." Is this his default? Is rape culture his ENTIRE THING or is it just triggering language he uses as a smokescreen to inhibit close reading of his work, which he has to know will not stand up under any scrutiny, but which he chooses to publish under his own name?

I really wish he would log onto this board so I could have a word with him. Perhaps your friend or whoever informed him of this thread might encourage him to do so?

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Updated On: 2/4/14 at 07:11 PM