When I wrote yesterday’s post on the Hofstra University rape allegation, “False Rape Accusations and Rape Culture,” I was hoping that we might all be able to find a common ground, and fight together against both rape and false rape accusations. Then I read the comments. Silly me! The comments of the week are after the jump (since y’all talk too much, most have been abridged).

recursiveparadox is oddly prescient:

I think what it largely comes down to is that a lot of these folks don’t care about stopping the rape culture at all, or even know about it consciously.

They hate false accusations of rape because it’s something that could happen to them (you’ll notice it’s mostly guys flipping out on this) not because it is caused by rape culture.

And for the ones that simply don’t realize that the rape culture trains women to follow the coercion/innocence paradigm of sex, they aren’t making the connection when they engage in “slut shaming” and criticism of personal sexual choice. So they’re really just shooting themselves in the foot, because their actions contribute to false accusations.

. . . This paradigm infects our culture very deeply and I imagine a lot of these folks have absolutely no clue what is going on when they pull this shit about these stories. They only make it all worse.

As if on cue, Anon credits me with coining the term “rape culture”:

Rape culture? That sounds pretty vague, and pretty harsh. You honestly think we have a culture that promotes rape? I cannot take anything you say seriously after that. It sounds a lot like the all powerful, yet amorphous and incorporeal patriarchy. What if I went around talking about having to live in a “Princess Entitlement Culture” or a “Female Moral Superiority Culture”. Was your father, and his father, all part of this “Rape Culture”. Is the boogey man still in your closet secretly oppressing you through fear and intimidation?! Grow up.

Bob weighs in with some blogger-shaming:

How dare you Ms. Hess! In nearly the same breath you indict these innocent men of being mere pigs who bamboozled a young girl into having sex with all of them at the same time while saying that there is a “rape culture” out there that tells women that they are bad when they have sexual desires. HYPOCRITE!!!!

You assume that they were happy because they all gang banged a girl. How totaly calous and demeaning to these men! They were locked up in jail facing 20 years in jail and now that they are happy to be out they are a bunch of dogs for beeing happy about it? Seriously.

Now ask yourself what kind of culture we actually live in a “Rape Culture” or perhaps a “False Rape Culture.” An interesting and valid question given the events. But one that I am sure to be damned for asking.

Sarah TX counters:

I’ve never thought of false accusations in this light, but it makes a lot of sense. It also really reveals the deep hypocrisy of commentators who gleefully dig up every single case where a woman recants her testimony about being raped (even though the actual percentages of false rape claims are extremely low, especially compared to the number of legitimate rape cases that are never prosecuted).

Paul Elam writes:

I enjoyed the dreamlike quality of this piece.

I wonder if Ms. Hess notices that all the social and legal instruments in place, including rape shield laws, men in prison for the crime, special victim crime units, zealous prosecutors, a number of awareness campaigns and the like point to the reality that we live in an “anti-rape culture,” not the other way around.

Could it be any more obvious, or is there secret rape societies somewhere operated by the Illuminati?

Piece of Advice attempts to bring everyone back on topic:

When railing against “typical feminists” and “misandry” you should probably at least TRY to hide your hateful attitudes toward women. I mean, I know this is a some sort of pat-on-the-back-athon from Men’s Daily News but you could TRY to cut out the ad hominem attacks, baseless attributions of thought and motive and disguise of opinion as fact.

But it can’t stop slwerner from informing sluts how slutty they are, and then telling those sluts to stop complaining about everyone calling them sluts:

Well the simple answer is that she didn’t want her boyfriend to find out that she IS A SLUT, and did cheat on him, and will likely cheat on him again.

. . . Of course she’s a slut. If we were to decide that all slut’s needed psychological counseling, we would need to increase the number of practicing psychologists ten-fold (at least).

I couldn’t stomach all of Amanda Hess’s steaming pile, but from what i did read, she attribute false rapes to the patriarchy “forcing” women to lie about their sexuality. Apparently women fear “slut-shaming”.

So, let me get this straight: women don’t need men (per se), but they do need men to “validate” their promiscuity?

Fat chance! There are perfectly valid reasons for men to reject promiscuous women as relationship partners. If women want to be sluts, they need to “own it”.

And, when they start to whine about how men don’t suffer from “slut-shaming”, they need to come to grips with the reality that it is WOMEN who do not reject promiscuous men (but, rather admire them as proven sex partners – women admire “studs” far, far more than do other men). In fact, the shaming men will more often get from women is for being (older) virgins.

Oh, well. Better luck next time?

Photo by robin.elaine