Monday, June 30, 2008

Ask Dr. Helen: Men and Rape

My PJM column is up: "Can a Man be Raped by a Woman? Of course he can, and believe it or not, it happens more often than we think."

Go read the column and tell me what you think.

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115 Comments:

Blogger Katherine said...

Ok, I have to ask this. I'm wondering why you keep on leaning towards the 'men have been hurt/abused/etc' by women theme on your blog. I've heard of many more women being hurt/abused, etc by men than I have of the reverse. Now, it seems like you are saying that this is because the issue just isn't reported on, and that might very well be. I'm not looking for hateful comments in reply, so save it if you're one of those readers who tends to leave those (and there seem to be many on this blog). You (Helen) seem like you have many male readers who hate women for one reason or other, and perhaps this is why they are drawn to your blog, since most of your posts are anti-woman. You seem to be very compassionate towards men, which is fine, and I'm not slamming that. It seems like there is a lot of hurt there, and I'm totally not discounting that, so please don't go attacking me. I'm just seriously wanting a reason why you always seem to be posting the man-hurt-by-woman side of the story. There is another side, you know, and I've heard/met far more women who've been abused in one form or another by men. Perhaps this is just because men don't talk about this stuff. Maybe. I'm not saying that women can't be bad. People can be bad, regardless of their sex. It's not just a one-sex issue. You seem to be only reporting on the one side, and I'm wondering why. Is it because you're trying to get the issue out there? (which is good) Or do you hate women? (which I wouldn't understand)

7:21 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Trust said...

katherine, I can't speak for Helen, but I can speak for my observations. Dr. Helen appears to focuse on men's issues because there is a shortage of concern for it, not because she thinks men are abused more than women.

You're right, you do hear women are far more abused by men, and women are certainly raped more. But that is no reason to show no concern for men who are the victims (and I know you said it isn't, I know you know that, but the rest of the media doesn't seem to be).

Your statement that she "seems to be only reporting on the one side" actually answers its own question--she's reporting on the side that usually isn't reported on. Do any search, and you'll see more than sufficient reports and concern for women as victims.

Best,
Trust

7:32 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Helen said...

Katherine,

I am sorry that you see this blog as "slamming women." That is a very common view in our society when the woman's perspective is not taken as the "correct one." There is no place in the MSM or in our society in general for a real discussion of the issues that men face. I present them here. I am not anti-woman nor do I hate women. They are human beings just like men and I have respect for both sexes. I use this blog as a platform for men and the women who care about men to discuss some of these issues. You are right, men do not discuss many of these topics because there is no place to do so. Why don't you ask Dr. Phil or Oprah why they only present the woman's side of things. Do they hate men? Do you write and ask them? Why are you so concerned that there is a platform for men here? Does it threaten you?

7:49 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Katherine said...

Helen,I'm glad that that is the reason you blog this then. I don't have T.V., (one of the blessing of not having lots of money, I've found) so I have no idea what Dr. Phil or Oprah say, nor do I really care, honestly. I like to form my own opinions on matters, rather than having them handed to me on an emotional, "I-have-a-degree-in-whatever and therefore you-should-listen-to-me and besides-I'm-popular-and-everyone-likes me" platter. So, no, I don't write them. And, no, it's not that I'm concerned that men have a platform here. And, no, it doesn't threaten me. Though I do take issue with some of the commentators you have in their hateful comments. It doesn't seem beneficial to take what one woman has done (in the case of a commentator) and turn it around to a 'every woman is bad and a bitch' viewpoint. Nor does it seem beneficial to take an 'all men are pigs' viewpoint because some people have had bad experiences. It's your blog, and you obviously have the right to post whatever you want. I'm just trying to understand why you only post the male viewpoint, that's all, as I mentioned above.

8:01 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Katherine said...

Trust, thank you for a nice reply. You seem like a nice person. Yes, the media seems to be very woman-oriented.
One thought I had, and please correct me if I'm wrong, was that for years and years (I don't have any firm years and when it stopped/started to change) men ruled the world and women were regarded as property, less than human. No one raised much of a fuss when women were raped/killed/abused/treated as property, because they weren't as important as men. At some point, women started to change this, and get jobs, be more independent, not relying on daddy or husband to support her. I'm not a women's libber, and I think they have a lot to answer for. (I stay home with my kids/do the majority of cooking/cleaning, homeschool my children, so obviously I'm not a women's lib girl) Now it seems like women are swinging too far in one direction, maybe to 'seize the reigns of power'? First the pendulum was more in favor of men, now it's swinging toward favor of women. I'm not saying that's right, or just or anything. It's just a though I had.

8:09 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Helen said...

Katherine,

You are focusing on perhaps a few commenters here who have negative takes on women. I do not agree with all of them for the most part. However, you have overlooked many of the wonderful commenters who come here and try to sort out or understand what is happening in terms of men's issues in our society. I read many comments where men are just puzzled or rightfully frustrated and angry about how they are perceived or treated.

I want to know how men feel about marriage, relationships, legal issues, reproductive rights and other topics. I really want to know and this is why I have leeway on my blog for the most part for people to express their real opinions. It gives me a window and an opportunity to get to know and understand what men really think and feel--not what I feel or think, that is irrelevant. I am not living in their skin. Having some platform or place to open up is key in understanding what the issues are and how to address them. I am sorry that you feel the male viewpoint only is represented. Women are welcome here for discussion. I thank you for taking the time to give your opinion.

8:16 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Trust said...

katherine, you are welcome. I appreciate dialogue.

You are not wrong, women did used to be treated as property. I can't speak much for that time since I'm only 34. Fact of the matter is, American women enjoy more freedom and less oppression than any other women I know of throughout recorded history. But, due to the historical injustices, many are angry. Which is why many women, even ones who proudly proclaim themselves to be of the more compassionate and kinder gender, will laugh at violence against women (as Dr. Helen pointed out when she wrote about how women laughed when a man was stabbed in his sleep by his girlfriend). Many feel we have it coming, even though I and most men living today had nothing to do with historical injustices against women.

Best analogy I can give is slavery. Slavery was an inexcusable evil against blacks. However, our country, like oppression of women, brought it over when the country was founded and eventually overcame it. Now we have politicians wanting "reparations for slavery" which I think is racist itself because it is basically saying that people who had nothing to do with slavery owe money to people who were never slaves solely because of race. I'm not sure your race, in fact that would be irrellevant, but you most likely see how holding people accountable for sins of their great-great grandparents is not fair.

I think sometimes feminism goes to far that way, holding today's men, who do not oppress women, as fair game for their oppression as payback.

Men still control most of government. For whatever reason, women don't choose that field as often as men do. However, women still are the largest block of voters and have more control than apparent because they tend to elect male politicians that pander to them. When women gained the right to vote, you can see a shift in governmental priorities in respose to the new voting block. Whether the changes are good or bad I will not debate, but it is evident since suffrage that women do have a voice even if it is men actually voting on Washington.

There are two things are society needs to do, IMHO, that may seem contradictory. First, we need to accept that men and women are different and as long as we have freedom, stats will always be skewed because of those differences. And Second, we need to start judging people based on their merits as a person rather than their gender (or race, etc.). That may seem contradictory, but it is not. Two people who are polar opposites can both be decent or indecent, victim or perpetrator, etc.

Have a great day!

8:25 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Archivist said...

The awful lesson to be drawn from the story is this: As horrible as the rape was, the man allowed it to occur because the prospect of a false rape accusation obviously, and quite reasonably, struck him as worse. This says much about the legitimate fears men have about false rape claims.

Objectively verifiable data suggests that at least 9 percent and probably closer to half of all rape claims are false. Yet the crime of making a false rape report has become so embroiled in the feminist sexual assault milieu that it has been largely, and improperly, removed from the public discourse about rape. Sexual assault counselors often disingenuously refer to false accusations as a "myth." Denigrating the experience of the falsely accused by dismissing their victimization as a myth is not merely dishonest but morally grotesque.

My Web site is devoted to raising awareness about false rape claims. False Rape Society

8:40 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Katherine said...

Trust, I totally agree with you (on all counts!). I myself have thought that the issue was like slavery. Do I (I'm white and Irish) have to apologize to the black (or African American, or whatever they want to be called-I read an article-can't remember where-that said that only about 1/2 of black people want to be called African American) person for slavery? Liberal people would say yes, most likely. I say no, as I never had slaves, and come from Irish folk who settled in Canada and then moved into America sometime in the 1700's (and never had slaves).
I know a lot of women are angry (it's apparent even if they say they aren't) and think men should pay for eons of mistreatment. Should men apologize? Only if they mistreat women themselves. Should women treat men badly because of how they were treated/how women in the past were treated? No. My opinion is that there is never a good excuse for behaving badly-something I try to teach my children (one boy and two girls).
I have, in the past, read a different blog http://voxday.blogspot.com/. He seems to be very anti-woman, with the opinion that women should never have been given the vote, should not work outside the home. I think it was on his blog that I read that because women work outside the home now, men aren't paid the same.
Perhaps men's salaries have gone down after women entered the workplace. Is it a bad thing that women work though? I don't think so. Is it worth it to whine about how much less someone is making because women are working in a particular field? I don't think so. It's probably just a fact of life. Women have voting rights, and I think that's a good thing. Should women stay at home more? In my opinion, and I realize it's only one opinion, if women have kids, they should stay home with them. Probably our kids/youth would be better off if their parents were around more to teach them right from wrong. But should women not pursue a career? I think they should if they want to. I know that puts my different opinions somewhat at opposing ends of a spectrum, and I'm not sure what that says about me.
On the other hand, should men take more of a role in the raising of their kids? Yes, indeed, they should. I think it's so important for a man who has kids to be THERE for them, rather than married to his job/computer/fill in the blank. Both sons and daughters need their dads (and moms) to be a vital part of their lives.

8:52 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger TMink said...

Katherine wrote: "No one raised much of a fuss when women were raped/killed/abused/treated as property, because they weren't as important as men."

When was this? What time period are you talking about, I would like some dates please.

We certainly agree that prior to women getting the vote they were disenfranchised, and that was wrong. But when is this time that men abused women with impunity?

Trey

9:16 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger TMink said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

9:16 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Cham said...

But when is this time that men abused women with impunity?

Considering that 30% of African American males have a European Y chromosome haplogroup, there might have been a time during the slavery years that men raped their female slaves with impunity.

9:26 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Archivist said...

So much of the assumption of past "oppression" of women is premised on a de rigueur feminist revisionist history -- much of it is simplistic to the point of being downright deceptive.

Try telling my great-grandmother that she was "oppressed" when she was able to stay in the safety of her home raising children while my great-grandfather worked 80 hour weeks in a mill so dangerous that men were routinely killed. This was the typical gender arrangement throughout much of history. From the dawn of civilization, men were ordained -- especially by women -- as the "breadwinners" with responsibilities outside the home while women have traditionally "ruled" the domestic scene. (You think it was men's idea to risk their necks killing wild bulls while the women stayed back in the cave?) Even today, if a guy announced to his fiance that he intended to be a stay-at-home dad, most women would dump him -- no ambition, she'd tell her friends. Old notions die hard, don't they?

As the economy grew and most jobs no longer were dependent on physical strength or endurance, there was no legitimate justification to keep women who wanted to work to do so. Women assumed their place in the society outside the home. And most really can "have it all" -- work and still be considered the primary parent (much to the amazemnet of men who can't understand why they are still deemed secondary parents even in family law court, despite the statutory abolition of the tender years doctrine). Men can't have it all. They are still stuck in their gender constricting "breadwinner" role they've "enjoyed" since the dawn of man.

In short, to brand the social order that existed from pre-historical times until the 20th Century as "oppression" against women denies the fact that women were complicit partners in this arrangement, whatever you want to call it. In fact, a legitimate argument can be made that it was women, more than men, who insisted on it. If one had suggested to a woman in 1917 that she should be drafted to help with the war effort, she would have dismissed your suggestion as a the ravings of a lunatic. Certainly not all women, but this was the way it was. Men dutifully still sign up for selective service and face criminal charges if they don't, and I see no great feminist uprising to change that gender disparity. Moreover, it was women's groups who presented the only real opposition to women getting the vote.

So please spare us the analogies to slavery -- that sort of analogy denigrates the heritage of African Americans whose ancestors were brought here in shackles and who were routinely oppressed by white women. Many white women had no compunction in crying rape against a black lover to establish an alibi for an illicit sexual relationship, and her very word became his death sentence. Let's ditch that terrible analogy.

And please note, even in times when our women's studies profs. insist women were "oppressed," single women could own property and enter into contracts. Yet virtually every woman sought to be married to an "oppressor" and foreogo those rights.

Perhaps this suggests that we can't impose our modern sensibilities on different eras when life was much more difficult, and social orders and gender roles served purposes that the people who lived then -- both men AND women -- deemed important and useful.

9:33 AM, June 30, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is an important topic, and one that further illustrates that the differences between men and women are less than is commonly held to be true. I have done some amount of research on this topic and was horrified by what I learned. Polite society simply does not tolerate certain topics for common discussion, and the reality is that there are female sexual predators in this world. If you doubt it, read "Sexually Aggressive Women" by Peter Anderson.

Only recently in history have thoughtful people addressed homosexuality as something other than a sinful perversion; we are only beginning to understand and comprehend human sexuality in its true light. Now we have to face up to the notion that--yes--women can possess predatorial sexual traits no less than men. Human behavior never came with a pretty red ribbon on it, and there is a lot about our nature that is not terribly meritorious.

10:00 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger JL said...

Considering that 30% of African American males have a European Y chromosome haplogroup, there might have been a time during the slavery years that men raped their female slaves with impunity. - Cham

Or maybe those females simply were attracted to the obvious power and wealth of the slave-owners and made themselves sexually available to them in hopes of garnering some of the wealth and power for themselves.

Much the same as many women today.

10:01 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Katherine said...

Archivist,
Yes it is true that in the past men tended to do the more physically hard jobs (going out to slay the beast/going to the mills), but even that being the case, you can't erase the past of women being subjugated and told they couldn't have an opinion, being abused. And no, I didn't hear that in a feminist classroom. It is also true that males tend to 'want' to do dangerous things. It is in their nature (yes, yes, it's an overgeneralizing-not always true)to 'master' the beast, climb the mountain, win the war, etc. And yes, there are women who do these things too, but to a much lesser extent than men, I think. I don't think it was the pre-historic woman who 'forced' her man to go out to hunt a bull or whatever.
As to being the 'primary parent', I think, in a perfect world, moms and dads would be equally involved in their children's lives. I have no answer as to why the courts usually give women the 'primary parent' status. Perhaps it's because far more men leave their families and leave the kids to mom/grandma to raise? I might be wrong on that. One would hope that if there is a custody issue, that the courts would grant custody to that parent who would BE the best parent, not just to the most-acceptable gender parent.
As to the draft: women aren't by law part of the draft. Never have been, as far as I know. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I know that there are many more women nowadays who are allowed to be part of the military, more power to them. Myself, I have no interest in being in the military. Since there hasn't been draft for a long time, I don't think you can say that men have been 'forced' for a long time now to join the military. Yes there is the registration thing, and I'm not sure whey men still have to do that (my male cousin had to register when he turned, what, 18, 19? I don't remember.) Why don't them make women register? I have no idea. I bet it's not because there's some woman behind the scenes forcing government officials to make sure women don't have to. Seems like you think women are in the background pulling the strings of men/government like puppets to make society what they want. Sorry again, and I might be wrong, but it doesn't seem like women as a general group have that much power.
As for women getting the vote, it was mostly women, not men, chaining themselves to fences, having demonstrations, going to jail to prove a point and win the vote. Where are you getting your information that women didn't want the vote? Or were the chief opponent of it? I'm sure there were women back then who, for some reason, didn't want the vote. There were probably way more white men, wanting to keep the vote for themselves and keep women/people of color from lawfully being able to vote.
And no, I don't believe drawing an analogy to slavery denigrates the people who were brought over in chains against their wills. Nowhere in my comments or those of Trust did that come up. It's an analogy, which serves to help others understand an issue. I'm sure there were some white women who took advantage of black men. I bet there were far more white men who took advantage of black women slaves.
As for women owning property: yes, they probably in some cases were able to. And in that society, for a woman to have a child/family and not face public shame/scorn, she had to be married to a man. And to do that would have to give up her rights for property ownership, most likely. Women were expected to marry in that day, and were looked down upon if they didn't.
You can't erase history and put a 'women are evil' slant on it. I'm not saying men are 'evil' but you just can't put that spin on the past. It's like a feminist swinging in the other direction. It just doesn't make sense.

10:23 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Katherine said...

Jl: your comment reflects the attitude that women are predators and haven't been subjugated. Yup, I'm sure that those slave women saw how much 'power' they could have and most likely 'forced' those poor slave owners to rape them repeatedly. Yes, I'm sure you're right. (heavy sarcasm intended)

10:27 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger DADvocate said...

Just reading the comments to your column at PJM clearly shows the extent of the problem, especially blame the victim, make fun, etc. When it comes to psychological/emotional abuse, I've met quit a few women who were much better at this than any man I've ever known.

I also hate it when people start dredging up ancient history, a la Katherine. None of my three sisters nor my 83 year old mother were denied the right to vote. Nor were they discriminated against by Federal law as were white males.

10:59 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Archivist said...

Katherine, sorry, when you use conclusory, loaded terms such as subjugated and abused, you are unfairly gender stereotyping men throughout history and suggesting that an entire gender is flawed and evil. That's called prejudice, and specifically, misandry. Polite society would not tolerate you stereotyping any other class so harshly.

I wholly disagree with your assertion that women haven't been throughout history complicit partners in establishing gender roles. To assert otherwise is to borrow a page from the radical gender feminist victims' playbook. If you'd prefer to think of yourself as emanating from a long line of victims, by all means continue to delude yourself. Fair-minded people don't buy it.

As for the draft, you are correct. Women have never been drafted in this country. It will happen next time for certain because people like Hillary Clinton know they can't run for president when her gender stays home while the evil men go off to get killed. But still I don't see the feminists complaining too loudly that only young men still have to sign up for the selective service. Consider this: during fiscal year 2007, 158,935 names and addresses of suspected violators of the duty to register with the Selective Service System were provided to the Department of Justice for possible investigation and prosecution for his failure to register. That's according to the Selective Service System Annual Report for 2007, page 8. Of that number, 158,935 were male, and zero were female, of course, because females are not required to register. That's a hell of a lot of presumptive felons -- all because of the gender a person was born into, wouldn't you say? Thus has it always been so.

11:15 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger JL said...

@ Kat

Much like Cham, the assumption you're making is that the presence of that particular chromosome is due to rape. I mean, we all know women would never make themselves available sexually of their own free will to men in positions of power. Rape is the only way this chromosome would appear.

Yes, I'm sure you're right (heavy sarcasm intended).

11:20 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger TMink said...

Katherine, when was this time when women were routinely abused? This is an honest question, and while I appreciate what you said, I would like a little background so that we can discuss it.

"No one raised much of a fuss when women were raped/killed/abused/treated as property, because they weren't as important as men."

Was this in this century, the one before, just when are you referring to?

CHAM, you made an excellent point about slavery. I concur, sexual abuse and rape were just two of the horrid abuses of that time period, but it is important to acknowledge that. When people are treated as property rather than human beings, all sorts of horrid things happen. I do not think that was what Katherine was referring to though.

Trey

11:21 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger BobH said...

Isn't there a scene about this in "The Wedding Crashers?"

Every time I hear about men being raped, I think of the Clark/Hatfield experiment, where 75% of college age men were quite willing to have sex with a complete stranger, solely because she asked him. (The men who declined typically were apologetic.) In fact, the men were more likely to agree to sex than to agree to a date with the woman.

Maybe the mistake made by the woman in the article was to not wait until the man was only mildly drunk, then ask nicely.

11:49 AM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Katherine said...

tmink, as I pointed out somewhere above, I don't have specific dates/years. Just look through history. It wasn't until the more 'modern' period that women started to have more say in their lives (voting, not being married off by fathers, etc). And please, don't just look at our country. It's a worldwide thing.
jl, I never said that women would 'never' do such a thing. But for you to blanket statement that slave women 'made themselves available' just as 'women today do' is wrong, and shows that you have very negative feelings towards women. That is the kind of statement I was referring to earlier when I first posted. I'm not saying (I'll say it one more time...) that women have nothing to blame (or some women do, anyway). I'm not saying that all men have blame either. It seems like you and some other posters on this site seem to really dislike women, whether it's prejudice on your part (you too, Archivist), or whether you've just been burned by your own specific circumstances. I'm sorry if you have that pain in your life, but seriously, not all women are evil, out to 'get' men and make them miserable. I know plenty of women who are fine people, and plenty of men who are fine people too. For you to say that I'm prejudiced (Archivist again) means you really haven't read my posts, or are putting your own emotional slant on them. (maybe you like to accuse any woman who posts a negative opinion as a man-hater or evil) I did say that some things I wrote were overgeneralizations. Did you miss that?
And I'm sorry, Archivist, but we're probably going to have to disagree. I am not a radical feminist (if you'd bothered to really read what I'd posted before, you'd understand that). And I never once said that I was a victim (though some of you posters seem to want others to believe that men are the true victims and women are bad).
Seriously, you people who want men to have a voice. That's great. I honestly never even knew some of these issues before coming to this blog. I never even thought that men had these issues, or wanted to talk about these things. You are not, however, a great poster child for mens' rights/issues that need to be spoken of and made public when you twist history and claim that women are bad or have caused the harm done to them by men by, I don't know, seducing them? Making men hurt them?
There are bad women out there, yes. As I've said earlier. There are also some very bad men who have a lot to answer for. No one has a free pass for behaving badly, not women, not men, not particular ethnic group. We also need to take responsibility for our own actions/mistakes. Rather than blaming others. Yes, sometimes people are victims and unwittingly walk into a situation. That happens. But, some people open themselves up to bad things happening. They have to take responsibility for that and not try to place the blame wholly on others (men, women, black, white, fill in the blank). I have found in my life that nobody likes a whiner and people will not generally pay serious attention to one. (ask a parent of a young child-it's hard to take a whiner seriously). If you want people to take you seriously and see that you have issues, stop trying to lay the blame on solely women for the problems men have. There's enough blame to go around, and before someone tries to paint me as a feminist, man hater, prejudiced, please read again: I'm not saying men are bad! You should really read a person's comments before you say such things.

3:44 PM, June 30, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Helen-- I read "Mike"'s story over at Pajamas Media, and I'm not buying it. Even if we assume that Mike is telling us the truth about his "ordeal", I simply am not buying that he feels "traumatized" by it. I believe his first and lasting reaction is more truthful (and emotionally healthy), that is, he reported that he'd always looked at the event that night as an "uncomfortable memory of a wild night that ended weird." He reports that now he needs therapy?! Please. Are you kidding me? "After 17 years of pretending, the floodgates opened this week ..." This guy's emotionally underdeveloped. Yes, the woman was weird. Yes, the experience was weird. Time now that he puts on his big boy pants and gets over it.

6:28 PM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger James Landrith said...

Richard, care to share your psychology credentials with the rest of the class?

No sir, I am not "emotionally underdeveloped". I repressed the events and pushed them to the back of my mind.

You know why? I stated so in the comments thread - because I had a rape survivor in need of my support on a daily basis. I was triggered out of delusion last month by a friend's situation.

This is not uncommon among rape survivors - to repress for years until it backs up and kicks them in the gut later.

No Richard, I don't need to "put on big boy pants." I am doing the big boy thing now - dealing with it like an adult.

7:32 PM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger AFFA said...

"I don't think it was the pre-historic woman who 'forced' her man to go out to hunt a bull or whatever."

The best hunters had the most children. Or: give paternity tests to a hunter-gatherer tribe. In a very literal sense, women's choices are responsible for how men behave and vice-versa.

For the majority of human history, both men and women were routinely abused. These days, there are a few countries where people are not routinely abused, and the citizens of these lucky places have the luxury of getting angry over the past instead of the present (and worrying about the future instead of the present).

7:48 PM, June 30, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

“Mike”-- I'm a heterosexual guy. I've been alive over 40 years. I’ve known literally hundreds of other heterosexual guys during my lifetime, and I have many close male friends, and I will tell you this: Any man who, on your set of facts, says that he felt "traumatized" by the sex as you describe it had some other emotional problems going on inside him way before the experiences of that night. Legally, yes, the woman who had sex with you has some criminal liability for her actions because it was not consensual sex. However, any normal, mentally healthy man who experienced what you experienced is not going to require therapy for it and certainly no "floodgates" of trauma are going to open up for him 17 years later either. Instead, he is going to think (a) Christ, that woman was a real psycho, and (b) what a bizarre incident. He will not, however, repress what was sex, or need therapy in the near term, and in the long term he might actually laugh about how strange it was. (Contrast this to, say, the homosexual rape of a heterosexual man by brute physical force. That is completely different, and the guy's probably going to be pretty emotionally fearful and messed up for quite some time.)

I should point out too that after you became conscious I believe that your decision to continue with the sex was the end of the “rape.” After that point you were simply being manipulated into having sex. Yeah, yeah, I know you said you felt you “had no choice,” but you did have a choice. You chose sex. And if allegations of sexual manipulation in your mind equal allegations of rape we’d better start building a lot more prisons, fast.

I’m puzzled as to why you felt the need to “repress” any aspect of that night from your consciousness. Hell, I would have gone to my male friends the next day and told them, “Holy Frickin’ Cow, I gotta tell you this ... did I ever run into a psycho-woman last night!” That you felt the need to repress any of it tells me your problems began before the so-called rape ever occurred.

8:09 PM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger Acksiom said...

Katharine, in regards to your thoughts on the historical oppression of women, please consider the following points made to a previous poster on the same subject:


First,

Americanwoman -- isn't discrimination not just gendered (and raced), but classed, as well -- and arguably, far more so the latter than the formers? In fact, hasn't the vast majority of humanity, both males and females, been 'on the bottom rung', alike and together, for the vast majority of our history?

Haven't the differences in power and status between both males and females of the peasantry, versus the power and status of males and females of the aristocracy, been much greater and far more discriminatory than the differences between males versus females within each of those classes?

Which would you have rather been, historically -- a male peasant, or a female aristocrat?

The vast majority of human beings, male and female alike, have throughout history been used and abused by a bullying, brutal, ruthless elite -- which was also composed, likewise, of both males and females. Before women could vote in the usa, could women, as slaveowners, nevertheless buy, sell, "own", and thereby use and abuse other human beings at their whim -- including men?

Which would you have rather been, in recent american history -- a male slave, or a female freewoman?


Reiterated,


And again it must be pointed that most people were 'relegated' -- or better said, subjugated -- to a subservient role in the past; and among the few class elites who did and benefited from said subjugating, women have been consistently well-represented.

The point invalidating her view of reality remains the same: that historically, there has been a vastly, overwhelmingly greater relative difference in freedom and self-determination between men and women of the subservient subjugated classes versus men and women of the ruling classes, in comparison to the relative difference in freedom and self-determination between men versus women within the subservient subjugated and ruling elite classes.

That is a crucial historical fact which she herself is indeed ignoring.

So again, americanwoman, was or was not virtually everybody relegated to a subservient role in the past for the most part -- in government, in education, in the arts, in religion? Yes or no?

And given the choice, which would you personally have rather been -- a typical male of the subservient subjugated classes, or a typical female of the ruling elite classes?

Which would you rather have been -- a typical male slave, or a typical female slave-owner?


And finally,

Look. As long as you continue to view the world exclusively in terms of gender-based power relations, your understanding of real life, and your consequential happiness and success as a human being, are going to be likewise severely limited. Such an exclusive focus upon gender-based power relations reduces your model of the world so drastically that you miss out on essential knowledge in a host of other areas.

The fundamental human competition and conflict is not between men and women, but between individualism and tribalism, between autonomy and dependency, between self-determination and authoritarian dominance. The ruling elites and their hierarchy of con-artist parasites who try to convince you otherwise are simply attempting to distract you from the real power relations -- the ones that the founding fathers recognized and used as a philosophical basis for the creation of our fundamental, revolutionary social contract between the State and the Citizen.

Bottom line, people who get you all whooped up about one gender oppressing the other are somewhere on a hierarchical continuum that runs from emotionalistic tools at the bottom to ruthless profiteers at the top.

The resentment of "men's historical oppression of women" is simply a programmed trance people get sucked into so that they won't notice how much of their wealth and energy are being siphoned off, and how much control over their lives is being established and maintained, by the very same people promoting and spreading that resentment.

Get it?

Your enemies are not the other gender. Your enemies are the people telling you the other gender is your enemy. And the other gender is not your oppressors. Your oppressors are the people today, and the people throughout history, who keep tricking you into resenting your peers and equals, so that you never notice how much the tricksters are taking from you, and how much the tricksters are getting you to do for them.

They're con artists and demagogues and liars, and the real enemy. And you need to let go of the warm fuzzy righteous indignation that their lies awaken in you. Because they're using you through that to distract everybody's attention from just how much wealth and power they've wrongfully acquired.

9:11 PM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...

I have interviewed one man who was fondled by older sisters, coerced into sexual acts with them. Sexual abuse of male children seems much less frequent than that of female children, the most common sexual asault that I hear of, and, when it occurs, is some homosexual attack. That said sexuality includes the 'hunter becoming the hunted' and potentially 'odd' reversals of roles. That doesn't mean to assume some representative reporting of sexual assaults comes to psychiatrists.

10:34 PM, June 30, 2008  
Blogger James Landrith said...

Dr. Smith:

I wanted to publicly thank you for your kindness and support since I first reached out to you weeks ago.

This has not been easy, but compassionate, mature, experienced people like you have made it easier.

I just hope that another man has the courage to admit what happened to him as a result. I've been beaten up pretty badly by the knuckle-draggers today. I expected such abuse. I'm going anywhere and I'm not shutting up so that they can go back to pretending this doesn't happen. I'm going to continue to be an inconvenient voice about this topic.

And I thank you for amplifying that voice through your blogs.

12:06 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger JL said...

@ Kat

I like women very much. I just don't like or agree with you.

For future reference, when someone disagrees with you, it does not mean that they are a misogynist.

2:19 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger pockosmum said...

"men ruled the world and women were regarded as property, less than human. No one raised much of a fuss when women were raped/killed/abused/treated as property, because they weren't as important as men."

Bah humbug. What revisionist feminist history will never tell you is that the world was by and large, built on the backs and by the blood of men.Outside of those in the lowest economic classes, women were protected to a degree from the unpleasantness in life. *Men* were seen as disposable, as slave labor, pressganged crews of ships, as cannon fodder in war after war. A few ruled, the rest lived pretty miserable lives.

Rape and wife beating have never been "allowed" as normal behavior, at least in the US.Despite the supposedly cruel manner in which 'The Patriarchy(TM)' disregarded women as human beings, some of the first labor laws in the world were directed at getting women (and children) out of the coal mines and factories. No such concessions regarding working conditions were made for the men until much later.

If it were true that women were thought insignificant, there would have been only women on the deck of the Titanic when it went down. 'Women and children first'. Damn those cruel patriarchs! Dying in droves while forcing women and children to save themselves!

The vote in America is also often held up as an indicator of sexism, it was given at first only to land owners, so there were plenty of men who couldn't vote either. Women were able to vote in several states before the 19th Amendment was enacted, granting universal suffrage, unifying the patchwork of state voting law.

What I find amusing is how feminists will tell you how bad women had it, but then on the other hand you see lists like this on the internet. It's quite interesting, and it may dispel some of Katherine's notions of the non-human status of women, at least in the United States--

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/
womensfirsts1.html

Lets say for the sake of argument that there was a time long ago when women were treated no better than animals (although copious paintings, literary works and poetry spanning the ages idolizing women kind of dent your pet theory) and we'll conveniently ignore the Queens of England, Spain and other countries. Lets say that men everywhere, or in India or Timbuktu abused women hundreds or thousands of years ago....your point would be? We don't live that way anymore, human beings have progressed and made laws and codes of social behavior to right wrongs . How does they way men treated women hundreds of years ago justify the way we treat men NOW? 'Why do you blog about mistreatment of men when women are mistreated more' makes no sense unless your standpoint is that women are more important than men. Another member said it better than I could in a post on this blog last week ('Sex and Housework')on the perpetuation of-

"the femelitist myth that because previous generations of women were primarily expected, and constrained -- by both men and women alike -- to be home-makers, the current generation of women now, somehow, magically! therefore deserves loyalty and service from the men around them without any need for reciprocation on their part."

and that this amounts to 'gender reparations'. You don't think men's issues deserve a focus. That alone should indicate to you how lop-sided things are.

4:28 AM, July 01, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

katherine, I have only one problem. I too, have two daughters and a son. You are home schooling your children.

My one problem is the fact you are home schooling your children. That being the case, you owe them the best education you can give them. Please have all the facts you can, and have them straight. Teach them how to think, and not what to think. Otherwise, you may as well send them to public schools.

6:22 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Katherine said...

aksiom, you are right in some respects. Others not. You have only to read books by authors around the world to see how women are treated. Yes, yes, as I've said before, men are mistreated too, but many more women are. The point I was even trying to make when I first commented was that some of the posters here make it out to seem like women are all evil. And when you say, "Your enemies are not the other gender. Your enemies are the people telling you the other gender is your enemy. And the other gender is not your oppressors." I wish some of the posters on this blog would read that. Again, had you read my previous posts, you would see that I never once said that men were my enemy. Or that I disliked men. Some of the posters, however, seem like they really dislike women and would like to translate some of their own bad experiences with women to all women. Which was my point.
Like you, jl. You sound like a misogynist, so if you're not, perhaps you should change your tune. No one's going to listen to you if you go on sounding like that.
br549, I am giving them the best education possible. One would start a whole new argument as to whether children are actually educated in prison, oops, public school. And yes, I do teach them all the facts I can and let them make their own assumptions. If you're hinting that I might teach them that women are the masters of men, have been stringing men along for as long as people have walked the earth, sorry. Quote from John Taylor Gatto:
Children learn what they live.
Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community;
interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important;
force them to plead for the natural right to the toilet and they will become liars and toadies;
ridicule them and they will retreat from human association;
shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even.
The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly.' But, since this is not a discussion on homeschooling vs public school, I'll leave it be.
Pockosmum, you make some excellent points. Thank you. However, you are quite wrong when you say that, "You don't think men's issues deserve a focus. That alone should indicate to you how lop-sided things are." Had you read my previous posts, you would see that this is not the case.
To James Landrith, I was very shocked when I read what happened to you. (I'm assuming that was you Helen was writing about in the story? I might be confusing the issue). I'm very sorry for what happened to you, and there was no excuse for her behavior. I am glad you are getting help and dealing with what happened. I'm glad that someone (Helen) has a forum for men to air stuff like this. Before coming to Helen's blog, I had no idea that these were even issues.
Helen, thank you for having a forum such as this. There are many womens' forums, but not many mens'. It is nice that someone is telling the issues like they are, not with a media-driven slant. Some of your readers seem to be slanting in the other direction, but oh well...

7:15 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Robert the Biker said...

Meanwhile, back on the topic.....
James wants to be a bit careful going on about 'knuckle draggers' merely because people dare disagree with him; it leaves the door open to responses of 'wuss' and 'whiny little bitch'
Just Saying Is All.
I side with the majority here, mostly because I can just see the conversation down the precinct house:
Guy: She ripped off all my clothes and got on top and screwed me senseless and came all over the place.
Cop: And?
Guy: Then she did it again.
Cop: So, the nature of this complaint is that this woman banged you stupid, got her rocks off and then came back for more?
Guy: Yeah
Cop: Jesus buddy, any chance of giving me her phone number?

Was this an attack by some predatory faggot, you would have my outrage and sympathy, but you are describing one of my teenage fantasies.

7:45 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Helen said...

Robert the biker,

James is "going on about the knuckle draggers" not because they disagree with him but because they, like you, are cruel, heartless, and so threatened by the idea of a woman using the state's power to get what she wants from men that you have resorted to making jokes and using humor to deflect your fear.

This topic is not just about rape, although it is that, it is also about how women use the state's power to force men to do things that they do not want to do. You know that deep down, a woman has power over you by use of the state and you are scared, else you wouldn't be on here cracking such ridiculous jokes. It may not be the situation James described but it could easily be another. Being threatened with state force is not funny. Perhaps you think it is. But that only shows what a coward you really are.

8:11 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger JL said...

You sound like a misogynist, so if you're not, perhaps you should change your tune. No one's going to listen to you if you go on sounding like that. - Kat

Funny, you've listened and responded to me three times already.

The most amazing thing is how you stretched my possible alternative to the "slave-master rape theory" into me being a possible misogynist and thinking that women are predators. All at the mere suggestion that maybe it wasn't raping with impunity that placed that particular chromosome, and that maybe readily observable female nature had something to do with it.

PS-I know you're listening.

8:15 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Acksiom said...

Katharine, just like Americanwoman, unless and until you provide a direct and straightforward answer to these questions, it simply doesn't matter what airy, baseless, mere hand-waving assertions you make otherwise.

Unless and until you behave like a mature and responsible adult, we have no reason to care what you think or how you feel, and particularly so WRT your personal subjective interpretations of some few commenters' statements here. Because if you won't respond directly to good, solid counterarguments against your assertions, then you're simply not worth our attention. You're beneath our notice. If you won't act like an adult, then what you think and feel about adult matters should not matter to us, and it does not matter to us, and it never will matter to us.

If you won't respond like an adult, you deserve the status of a child, and are to be considered irrelevant to adult conversation unless and until you demonstrate otherwise.

So again, Katharine -- isn't discrimination not just gendered (and raced), but classed, as well -- and arguably, far more so the latter than the formers?

In fact, hasn't the vast majority of humanity, both males and females, been 'on the bottom rung', alike and together, for the vast majority of our history?

Haven't the differences in power and status between both males and females of the peasantry, versus the power and status of males and females of the aristocracy, been much greater and far more discriminatory than the differences between males versus females within each of those classes?

Which would you have rather been, historically -- a male peasant, or female aristocrat?

The vast majority of human beings, male and female alike, have throughout history been used and abused by a bullying, brutal, ruthless elite -- which was also composed, likewise, of both males and females. Before women could vote in the usa, could women, as slaveowners, nevertheless buy, sell, "own", and thereby use and abuse other human beings at their whim -- including men?

Which would you have rather been, in recent american history -- a male slave, or a female freewoman?

Or, to add a variation specified to your individual bugaboo about which gender presently has it worse -- which would you rather be currently, worldwide: a male member of a subservient underclass, or a female member of a dominant ruling class?

Because compared to the vast gap between the underclasses and the ruling classes worldwide today, the petty differences between men and women compared to each other within those classes are still so trivial as to be effectively meaningless.

Changing the context to the modern day does not invalidate the fundamental point, and your refusal to directly deal with that fundamental point indicates that you are not to be taken seriously, because of how you display an unwillingness to behave like a responsible adult who holds herself intellectually accountable.

8:31 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger pockosmum said...

"I'm wondering why you keep on leaning towards the 'men have been hurt/abused/etc' by women theme on your blog. I've heard of many more women being hurt/abused, etc by men than I have of the reverse."

"I'm just seriously wanting a reason why you always seem to be posting the man-hurt-by-woman side of the story. There is another side, you know,"

"You seem to be only reporting on the one side, and I'm wondering why. Is it because you're trying to get the issue out there? (which is good) Or do you hate women?"

It just seemed to disturb or perplex you so much, that someone would devote a blog to this topic,well...I just drew my own conclusion. Yes, I did read your posts.

9:01 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Unknown said...

Interesting discussion going on here, both on and off topic.

I'd like to say some things about the place of women in history before I get to the subject of rape. Katharine, I sympathize with some of the points you're making. But I also sympathize with some of the points others are making in disagreement with you, so I thought I'd just summarize what I think and know about this subject.

There are lots of places, past and present, where I'd much rather have been born a man than a woman. I hope none of you are seriously suggesting that most Middle Eastern countries today (forget about the past) would be good places to be female. In most ancient Greek city-states, women were kept secluded, and could not even leave the house without being veiled and escorted by a male relative. Acksiom, your point about class is quite interesting, and there are certainly some societies where I would have much rather been an upper-class female than a lower-class male, but that isn't true of all societies. In Athens, even poor men could vote and occupy prominent positions (and walk freely on the street), so long as they were citizens. (Athens, like most societies back then, had many slaves, male and female.)

The exception in ancient Greece was the militaristic state Sparta, where all male citizens were professional soldiers, and so women did a lot of things that they did almost nowhere else in the world at that time. In Sparta, girls were educated alongside the boys and held a prominent place in both public and private life, and many of the most famous Spartans were women (Queen Gorgo, the most interesting of all, is depicted in the movie 300; she played an even more important role in the war against the Persians than what is shown in the movie). Spartan women, as educated and physically fit as their husbands (Spartans were obsessed with fertility and believed that physically fit women were more likely to give birth to physically fit children), so intrigued the rest of Greece that Plutarch even wrote a popular book about them, Sayings of Spartan Women.

That being said, there are also plenty of places throughout history where the place of women was high. In ancient Egypt, the royal line was traced through women, not men (men became pharaoh, but it was through their mother, not their father, that they held the right of rule). Women were business owners and participants in public life; property, like the right of rule, passed through the female line; because of this, women were actually the ones to propose marriage. In ancient Rome, the only real difference between the status of men and the status of women was that men could serve in the government, serve in the military, and vote. But Roman women owned property, held professions, and could institute divorce (this last power shocked the world, and many foreigners saw it as confirmation that the Romans were barbarians). I know a lot of women (myself included) would consider it a severe deprivation not to be able to participate in government, but Roman men were also obliged to serve in the military, an obligation that did not fall on women.

Something that bothers me about feminists is that they act like America is one of those societies where women occupied a low place until recently. That's not true. In America, women have always had the right to hold property, women were protected by the very law feminists decry (America is one of the few civilizations in the history of the world where rape has been punishable by death -- that's how seriously it was taken), and women have always had what you might call the "right" to work. Female lawyers were arguing cases in front of the Supreme Court well before the ratification of the 19th Amendment. In general, frontier societies like America have always been better places for women, because, at least in the beginning, women were scarce, and thus highly valued.

Victor Davis Hanson has made the excellent point that the major thing that separates modern America from past societies (include America in the past) is that our infant mortality rate is very low. Because of that, women no longer have to spend so much time pregnant, no longer have to have so many children in order to ensure the survival of the race, and that, more than anything, is what has made widespread workforce participation by women possible. It was not Evil Oppressive Males being Evil that "kept women down" so much as biology. Mind you, all of the past oppression isn't to be blamed on biology. But there are many different forms of oppression; women have suffered brutal oppression, but then, so have men; and Aksiom is right that in many societies, the rich have been far more oppressive of the poor than men have to women.

For those of you who have mentioned the draft, and have implied that it's unfair for only men to have to register, and for the person (I can't remember who) who mentioned the Titanic's "women and children first" escape strategy, you might be interested to know that those are different manifestations of the same (outdated) phenomenon. Because the infant mortality rate was once so high, women were seen as more biologically valuable than men. One man could father many different children with many different women over the course of a lifetime, but women's reproductive abilities were more limited in time and in capacity. It is possible for a man to father hundreds of children; it is not possible for a woman to bear hundreds of children. Thus (cruelly), women were seen as more valuable than men, because a society needed lots of women to produce lots of children. That is where the idea that women need to be protected comes from, and that is why, throughout history -- even in places like Rome and Sparta, where the status of women was otherwise high -- women have rarely been the warriors. The low infant mortality rate has made a lot of things possible, including female soldiers, but our institutions have not changed as fast as society.

(By the way, when I turned 18, I tried to register for the draft. I got a letter from the government turning me down because I was female. It's not even optional for women to register.)

As for the subject of rape, and whether or not what happened to the man in Dr. Helen's column was rape: I think under most people's lay definition of rape (unwanted, nonconsensual sex), it was definitely rape. Whether it's rape under the law would depend on the jurisdiction. My jurisdiction has a penetration requirement, so it would not be charged as rape here. There are other offenses, sexual and not sexual, that it could be charged as, but not rape. (Now, if she had stuck a coat hanger into the man's anus, that would be a different story.)

9:31 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger TMink said...

Elizabeth, great answer. I guess Katherine was too indoctrinated in the myths of femal oppression to have some concrete examples. I appreciate the balance and accuracy with which you shared the data.

Outstanding job.

Trey

9:50 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Robert the Biker said...

Helen,
Cruel and Heartless? I am the least cruel and heartless person you have ever met, but this guy is full of shit.
Had there been weapons involved or threat of mutilation, fine - rape
Had there been a gang egging the woman on, fine - rape.
Had this been some predatory (male) faggot with a knife down an alley, fine - rape.
It was none of those things, it was a woman getting her rocks off WITH HIS PARTICIPATION because, guess what, you cant keep it up and have her coming back for more if you aren't at least partly in the mood.
If I seem pissed off, it's because I am, because this clown and every whiny sod like him is the reason that 'male rape' in all its horrible forms is taken as a joke.

Cruel and heartless my sacred butt.
You read that Guy/Cop thing again and tell me that isn't EXACTLY how it would go.

10:29 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Unknown said...

Trey:

Thanks. :) I have five brothers whom I love dearly, and my father is an excellent man, so it's hard for me to buy into the feminists' "men are evil and depraved subhuman beings" mantra. I'm a humanist, not a feminist, so I do my best to be fair. :)

10:55 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Toysoldier said...

Dr. Helen,

I was impressed by your article and quite glad that James had the courage to come forward. There are too many men and boys who remain silent out of fear, largely because of the kind of attacks and mockery James is facing now. I am also glad that you have not allowed anyone attacking his rape to slide. Few people realize the potential devastation being violated can cause, though it is rather amazing how easily some of the men who have posted here can imagine that fear and anger should it be a "homosexual rape of a heterosexual man by brute physical force."

That said, I am actually quite amazed with how quickly people have gone for James' throat just because he spoke up. This happened to him when he was an adult and it caused him this much pain. One can imagine what this is like for younger male victims, so seeing this level of vitriol and mockery is just astounding. Worse yet, it is not specific to one side. It is not just men or just women or just feminists or just MRAs engaging in this. It truly seems like someone from every group cannot wait to attack and mock a rape victim. It is not that I have not seen this before, just that I have yet to get used to witnessing this level of sheer inanity.

11:19 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Robert the Biker said...

"Go read the column and tell me what you think."
So I did just that, and suddenly I'M the bad guy.
Toy, damned right men would feel differently about an attack by a male predator, do I have to spell out WHY that would be to you?
Pardon me if I'm less understanding about this guy and his 17 year hissy fit and his angst ridden 'oh my poor feelings' attitude.
I think I will call it a day on this one.

11:35 AM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Helen said...

Robert the Biker,

"Cruel and heartless my sacred butt.
You read that Guy/Cop thing again and tell me that isn't EXACTLY how it would go."

So why do I get the sense that you would be pleased that the police might react in such a biased and sexist sort of way? That is what I am reacting to. It is best for you to call it a day on this one, you have the empathy for your fellow man of a gnat.

Toy,

Thanks for your kindness and civility--something many on the PJM thread don't seem to have. They are so busy being threatened that a man could be harmed by a woman that they are projecting all over the place. You said it, what boy or man would come forward with this kind of hypocritical and ugly attitude? Despite the fact that men and boys also suffer from abuse, no one anywhere will speak up for them. They may remain silent but the hurt will cause society damage in the long run.

12:26 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Sio said...

Ah, a post that finally made me sign up for Blogger just to respond.

Robert the Biker stated:
"you cant keep it up and have her coming back for more if you aren't at least partly in the mood."

Oh please, fear can make you do plenty and sometimes its just the body doing that ol' stimulous-response action/reaction. Sort of like that old saw, "well she was wet, she must've liked it!". Yeah sure, except nowadays a woman can regret those beer goggles and get a guy tossed in jail for it. Go look up the 10 second rapist case(s).

Want proof? Read up on this horrible example of female on male rape at
http://www.childsupportguidelines.com/articles/art199903.html

Part IV of that article and the case of
S.F. v. Alabama ex rel. T.M., 695 So. 2d 1186 (Ala. Civ. App. 1996).

Look, Mr. Biker. I grew up in the 80s and 90s with all the new age sensitive guy crud. I believed a lot of it until my early 20s. At 30 now, you better believe I fear the type of situation here that "Mike" went through. You can call upon your decades of experience and that can be useful. However, I'm here to tell you, we don't live in the same times anymore and society DOES NOT have the same attitudes. Women don't think the same way as they did in the 50s and 60s or earlier. Rape/sex assault/sexual harrassment are big fear industries that make many folks lots of money and give many lots of power.

Its a witch hunt society. Man=bad, Woman=good. Your word as a man against a woman means jack squat more often than not.

Look up the Duke "rape" case, the Mcminnville, OR butt spanking incident from last year (boys prosecuted yes, girls no), the case I sited earlier where the guy was passed out drunk and raped and now pays child support. Look up the Alexander Shire case in Michigan or the Navarro case in CA. Look up the story of the first grade boy in MA that got suspended for sexual harrassment of a girl. He snapped her elastic pants waistband. Something she'd done a minute earlier to him.

You remind me of my now deceased step-father, an ex marine who served in Vietnam and plumber his whole life. A good man but living in the past, still buying into the wage gap and old school romance/courting even after his first wife drug him through the dirt and left him with damn near nothing (and helped to ruin his relationship with one of his kids).

Wake up and smell the coffee Robert. Oh, but I'm just a silly know nuthin gen x'er, living in the world made by the crazy 60s radicals/baby boomers.

2:34 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger gigi said...

The problem I see with a female raping a man, is the fact that whatever the circumstances are, isn't it still pleasurable for the man? On the flip side, rape for women is NEVER pleasurable. Women and men's bodies are just way too different to have the same rules apply here. Having something forcibly shoved into your body is VERY different than a woman putting her vagina onto your erect penis and you "not wanting her to". Meanwhile this story is ridiculous. Halfway through is "victim" story he just happens to mention his awesome boner ability (not a direct quote) and how he was in such great shape. Oh and come ON if a woman wants to have sex there are plenty of men she could ask and they would gladly oblige. And what are the odds that one of the, oh say 5% of women who have orgasms vaginally finds the one man who can have a boner for hours WHILE drunk. Give me a break. It just doesn't add up. I call bullshit. Men can't be raped by women. I can't see any instance where this could possibly be emotionally and physically scarring to a man, causing him to feel shame for the rest of his life, as many women of rape feel. Waking up to find a woman bouncing up and down on you, would be mildly annoying at best. Just my thoughts. Feel free to disagree.

3:57 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Sio said...

Wow, Gigi. Another case of, "walk a mile in her high heels!" but heaven forbid you have to walk a mile in his workboots.

Yes, indeed it can be unpleasurable for a man. I mean the penis can just bend any ol' way it wants to go. As for it never being pleasurable for women, well what about all those "raped" women who were "wet" down there during the rape? Certainly they were getting pleasure out of it right? Yeah, sure they were.

The body may be reacting but I'm guessing the mind in both cases weren't enjoying things. I find it amusing that as I discuss this and similar issues that so many women, some of whom often complain bitterly how men in their lives or in general know nothing about female bodies and pleasing them. Yet, they seem to be completely ignorant themselves of such common male anatomy issues as "morning wood" and "wet dreams". "Whiskey dick" they seem to know all about though.

4:13 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger James Landrith said...

Wrong Gigi.

I did not mention any "awesome boner ability". You are parroting something that a known cyber-vigilante was attempting to harass me about yesterday before she was exposed for who she really was.

No, I did not say anything about "awesome boner ability". I mentioned being able to hold an erection for long periods to explain why she was able to rape me while I was asleep. Why? Because of idiots who believe that an erection = consent. Does the shoe fit Gigi?

There is a world of difference between the two. One is bragging, the other is a relevant detail that explains how she was able to take me while passed out.

Your insinuation is disgusting and you owe me an apology.

Your closing lines tell it all though - you don't believe a woman can rape a man because you are prejudiced toward men and view them all as horny sex dogs.

You then mock me for mentioning my physical condition. I was a 19 year old Marine. I mentioned it because it explains how the police would have seen me vs. my rapist.

19 year old in excellent physical condition vs. a 24ish pregnant college student.

What you posted was a transparent attempt to rearrange my words and take them out of context to impugn my character. That is practically lying.

Gigi. I was raped. Every rape survivor that I've spoken to in confidence about my experience before going public agrees. My rape crisis therapist agrees and my rape survivor wife of 15 years agrees. After 15 years of supporting her pain and waking up next to her nightmares and flashbacks I am finally in a place to process my emotions and get on with life. What do you know about it personally? Have you been there when I was breaking down? Were you there yesterday when I experienced panic attack after panic attack and went home with deep aches in my muscles from the tension? Were you there when my wife held me while I let out 17 years of repressed emotions?

No. You are busy with your stereotypes and prejudices.

You mock me as you are a cruel individual who knows everything as if you can see into the past, but apparently nothing about male anatomy. You want to know about erections? Start reading some books about raped men and erections. You'll be fascinated to learn there is a difference between being hard and wanting to be hard. Read about women who've been raped but stayed wet and orgasmed during the attack. Read before sharing your ignorance with the world. You won't though - as your mind is made up and influenced by your clear and transparent prejudices. Fortunately for the rest of the world, the truth doesn't change just because you have a bigoted, stereotype influenced agenda to promote.

4:24 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Helen said...

James,

I think many of the negative commenters are having their worldview threatened by what you have to say. They realize that just a few of us speaking up might just change things and break the monopoly that the feminists and their enablers (many men included here) have had on sexual harassment, domestic violence and rape laws in this country since the 60's. That is their fear. Thus, men don't feel anything. They are not capable of being human, they are base animals who do not deserve to be heard and if they do speak up, they are liars, deserving of shame and blame, and disgust.

It won't work. Let them call us all the names they have for it just proves my point above. The more threatened they are, the more they belittle and call those who speak up liars or say that they speak for all men. Deep down they know the truth--that a few dissident voices is all it takes to make a change and strip them of their sexist monopoly.

4:49 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger gigi said...

I know you didn't say the actual words "awesome boner ability" but it kind of came across as braggy. Listen, you can think and feel however you want. I've never been there so I can't say. As a marine, you've probably experienced REAL trauma, buddies dying, people getting arms blown off. Things that really might affect your psyche, this I just can't see registering. I just think untill someone overpowers you, holds you down and shoves their penis into you, while also inflicting physical violence, you can't claim rape. That's my point. Were you taken advantage of, of course, no one wants to have sex with some one they didn't agree to it with, but calling it rape is my issue. Can women take advantage of men, YES. Can they use sex to manipulate, YES. Can they rape, not in my opinion. I'm not some crazy man hater, I have a husband and a son and I think the world doesn't acknowledge real men anymore. Good men that take care of their families and live a good life. The media portrays men as bafoons and there is a definite pussification of men in general. But women are and will always be "the weaker sex" so saying that they have done something to you against your will is just kind of silly. I think women are just as culpable when they put themselves in situations that can turn bad, like sharing a hotel with a stranger. Like I said, this is my opinion, and you are welcome to yours.

5:33 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Archivist said...

I applaud James for the courage to share something that other men would be ashamed to relate. It is clear beyond even a cavil that he was raped. Sex under duress is rape, period.

The fact is, James had no meaningful choice given the woman's threat to falsely cry rape. He became her straight man, her very own -- to put it crudely but I think accurately -- human dildo. To suggest that an erection signfies consent evinces no understanding whatsoever of male physiology.

The fact is, James knew instinctively what news story after news story confirms: even proven false rape claims are not treated seriously or sentenced harshly, but a mere allegation that a young man engaged in any form of nonconensual sex is presumed to be true and is enough to destroy his reputation, possibly forever, often in a most public manner (while his false accuser is shrouded in anonymity). False Rape Society

5:38 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Archivist said...

gigi, you should hope and pray that your husband and son never have a false rape claim made against them. Every man I hear from who's willing to discuss it agrees he'd rather be physically raped than have that. James had no choice but to submit to sex that he didn't want to have. Can you honestly assert that sex under duress is not rape?

Or do you think he should have just gone with the flow and enjoyed it? Hmm, if a man said that about a woman, he would be branded a misogynist. The double-standards in your argument are breathtaking in their misandry. False Rape Society

5:52 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Toysoldier said...

Dr. Helen,

I hope that more men and boys come forward despite all the anger that gets thrown at them. When I talk about my own experiences I deliberately leave out details to avoid the kind of the attacks being launched at James, however, I think that since my experiences occurred when I was a child that I have less vitriol directed at me. From what I have heard from the adult men I have met who have been raped (by men and women), this kind of response is not that uncommon, which I honestly cannot understand. Why would people not sympathize with a male victim and why would anyone actually go out of their way to try to cause him more harm?

Perhaps the reaction is a result of people having their world-view questioned, but I cannot think of anyone situation beyond high-profile rape cases that brings out this kind of automatic attack of the victim.

6:01 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Helen said...

Toy,

I think it is because it goes to the core of the feminist mantra --only women can be raped--or even abused, you are stepping on their turf.

At the same time, abuse of males by women enrages chivalrous or macho type men who see powerlessness as worst than death, they believe that women cannot hurt them and deny that any man can feel anything other than joy over being forced into sex by a woman. So, they project that you must have really enjoyed it, just as they think they would. They might be so repressed that they cannot admit to themselves that they do not have that much power over their own sexuality--not as much as they think. The state is regulating their sexuality and they mistakenly think that they are in control.

6:21 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger gigi said...

It IS a double standard. Men and women are VASTLY different.

On another note how much of rape claimed by women is simply sex they really wished they hadn't had?

I should have posted my comments on the article thread instead of here. Oh well.

7:14 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Buckeye Tom said...

gigi,

If she began having sex with him when he was passed out, and he could not physically stop her, she raped him. It does not matter that he awoke and did not physically stop her then. The rape began when he was unconscious.

"Oh and come ON if a woman wants to have sex there are plenty of men she could ask and they would gladly oblige."

Maybe this is true of some/most women. But I doubt it is true for women who are 6 months pregnant. I know several men (I'm not saying all men) who who are less than enamored to have sex with their pregnant wives, but do so to meet their wives' needs, and to avoid hurting their feelings. If the men were single, I doubt they would be so accommodating for a total stranger who was pregnant.

8:11 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Jungle Jim said...

I know the experience of having a woman lie about me to the police. The false allegation was not about rape, but it was still very hurtful and embarrasing, and I got chewed out by the cops for something I didn't do. Fortunately, that was all they did.

Anyone who makes a false complaint to the authorities or tries to frame up someone they know to be innocent should receive the same punishment that the victim of the lie would have received had they been guilty of the false allegation.

Mike Nifong got away with a slap on the wrist and Crystal Mangum got away with no consequences at all.

9:10 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger pockosmum said...

"and for the person (I can't remember who) who mentioned the Titanic's "women and children first" escape strategy, you might be interested to know that those are different manifestations of the same (outdated) phenomenon. Because the infant mortality rate was once so high, women were seen as more biologically valuable than men."

That was me. Yes, women were considered valuable, it directly contradicts Katherine's assertion that no one cared if women were killed.

gigi, young men invariably have erections upon awakening...did this give that woman the right to make use of it? It is non-consensual sex, rape.

9:13 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Marbel said...

Wow, I am just stunned by the people who have determined that this man could not (or should not?) have been emotionally devastated by this experience. It's kind of funny, in a pathetic sort of way ("mildly annoying?") - though obviously not to the person who had the experience.

9:19 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger gigi said...

pockosmum, I was more commenting on the actual scenario in the article that seemed really really fake. THat was my gut instinct on that particular guy. Of course taking advantage of a sleeping person is wrong, but where I can't quite get on board, is if that is really rape. I have a friend who was "raped" in a hotel room by a guy she went there with and by a guy she let sleep in her house. Both times it was her own bad decisions that got her taken advantage of. I guess there is just too much gray area for me. The jury is still out.

9:21 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger gigi said...

Its hard to post things and have people read them in the same spirit you wrote them in. Most of the Crazy things I said were tongue in cheek. Anyhoo...

9:22 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger TMink said...

"The problem I see with a female raping a man, is the fact that whatever the circumstances are, isn't it still pleasurable for the man?"

Yep, I would love to have some ugly bitch with herpes have her way with me. I am getting horny just thinking about it. Man, I think I am going to have to find some pics of Rosie O'donnell.

Pure pleasure.

Trey

9:42 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Unknown said...

Most men are conditioned on schoolyard battlefields to act tough. In most cases, if they keep up the proper front, the bullies will never mess with them. It's usually all front. It's only when you stand up to bullies in the name of others, and survive, that you've been tested. You're doing that, Helen w/ piercingly factual and erudite support from Elizabeth on this post, in the intellectual world, and I commend you both. You have my respect, as does any woman who stands up for men's rights in a world where women have been constantly raped, subjugated and oppressed; in a world where everyone forgets Socrates' wife was a vicious scald.

I'd like to ask, "Would you rather be a male serf or a female serf?" Let's see, as a female serf, you were expected by your liege lord to... uhhh... milk cows? At worst, give it up one night if you were really, really hot? As a male serf you were expected to pay the protection money, and fight in whatever petty border skirmish at the drop of your serf hat on the point of a knight's sword that your liege lord demanded.

Nevermind that you didn't have a violent bone in your body. Nevermind that you didn't have anything against those other guys being forced to fight. To save your family you'd charge, in complete terror, into the battle and try to survive. You'd probably commit murder there. You'd likely die there. You'd perhaps even lie there next to the man you'd skewered on your pike, on a field of screaming dead men. As the night wore on, and the screaming, praying and crying died down, you'd talk about your wives, and your children. Then the man you murdered would die. And you'd be left alone.

Now I ask you fine people, is that worse than rape?

This story has been repeated and repeated again throughout our history. Sure, some of those guys made it home to die from their wounds -- that's even worse. Others fell on the way home, crawling away into the forest to die, like cats, their last despairing thoughts of their wives, or of their children.

Women seem to know very little of any of this. Nor does it seem they really care, judging by how feminism today casts all those men as very-willing, bloodlust-consumed monsters, responsible for everything.

Men are expendable for the sake of a city, a society, or a culture. Whether it is nature or nurture, I have my doubts. The bees in the corner of my window hath my mind enthralled. It is slightly suspicious that only women can be taken seriously when debating these issues. Raises one of my antennae, you might say.

10:25 PM, July 01, 2008  
Blogger Robert the Biker said...

Gigi,
I agree with you on this, about both the action and the attitude shown. You got to the heart of the matter IMHO.
Sio,
You dont have to call me mister, my name's Robert and at 55 years of age, I probably have a lot more in common with your old man than the teenage fantasist you seem to think I am. I was not a Marine, but a straightforward Infantry grunt.
Helen,
We will have to agree to disagree on this. Cops are not renowned for empathy, but they DO have a way of cutting through the bullshit.

2:57 AM, July 02, 2008  
Blogger James Landrith said...

Gigi:

Your "gut instincts" are irrelevant to the facts at hand.

Further, I am incredibly happy not to know you personally, given you are willing to blame even your friends for getting raped. That speaks volumes about what you've been spouting here on this thread. Sorry, but there is never a right for anyone to rape another person - EVER. The victim is not to blame for being abused. Learn this and apologize to your friend.

Further, ending your posts by saying it is "just my opinion" does not absolve you of having your "opinion" dissected and criticized. An "opinion" that is admittedly based on zero knowledge is an uninformed opinion. At present, you are speaking from a position of willful ignorance.

There is no jury, so it cannot be out. Whether you believe I was raped or not - the truth remains the same. It is not up to you to be judge and jury. You are a stranger on the internet who blames her own friend for being raped.

I think that is all anyone needs to know about you with regard to this topic.

8:49 AM, July 02, 2008  
Blogger James Landrith said...

I'm not sure I understand what "Robert the Biker" is talking about.

What do cops cutting through b.s. have to do with what this woman did to me? Rape is rape whether Robert's 55 years of ignorance say so otherwise.

I grew up with cops on both my paternal and maternal sides of the family.

And????

Once again, the rape apologists and enablers grasp at straws and speak in nonsensical circles to justify their own insecurities and logic errors.

9:04 AM, July 02, 2008  
Blogger TMink said...

"Your "gut instincts" are irrelevant to the facts at hand."

Well said James. Too many folks put reality into the Procrustean bed of their own expectations. We can argue our opinions, but we must mutually accept the facts or we cannot discuss a thing.

Trey

9:31 AM, July 02, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow. Reading from the first post to the last, has left me speechless.

8:56 PM, July 02, 2008  
Blogger bmmg39 said...

"You seem to be only reporting on the one side, and I'm wondering why."

I think Dr. Helen specializes in discussing male victims of things because they're ignored far more often than female victims are.

Richard: "Time now that he puts on his big boy pants and gets over it."

And this is what you'd tell a female victims of rape, too, hmm?

10:55 PM, July 02, 2008  
Blogger bmmg39 said...

"However, any normal, mentally healthy man who experienced what you experienced is not going to require therapy for it..."

You really are that ignorant, aren't you? Ignorant enough to believe that because you'd enjoy a woman having sex with you while you're asleep that every other man would. And you're over 40, huh...well, maybe you'll wise up yet...

10:57 PM, July 02, 2008  
Blogger bmmg39 said...

"It was none of those things, it was a woman getting her rocks off WITH HIS PARTICIPATION because, guess what, you cant keep it up and have her coming back for more if you aren't at least partly in the mood."

Well, Biker, I actually HAVE a penis and know that erections take place all the time that have nothing to do with being sexually aroused. Like when a guy is asleep. Or he has to use the bathroom. Know one more thing that can cause erections? Fear. The blood pumps faster, and blood-flow to the penis is no exception.

Could your cute widdle "guy/cop" joke happen in real life? Sure, because there are plenty of A-holes such as yourself who'd have no sensitivity to a victim of rape just because the victim happens to be male.

11:03 PM, July 02, 2008  
Blogger Unknown said...

Thanks, sinbarnister. :)

11:24 PM, July 02, 2008  
Blogger Robert the Biker said...

bmmg39,
"Well, Biker, I actually HAVE a penis"
Ooooo, good for you; do you keep it in the drawer next to your wank mags then?
Some men always wake with a hard on, some dont, and my experience of actual fear is that your dick shrinks up until you think you'll never find it again.
This asshole is not a victim of RAPE, I'm sorry that he and cunts like him - such as your self - are losing out on the opportunity to make him some sort of poster boy for male rape, but thems the breaks
Fuck You.

2:23 AM, July 03, 2008  
Blogger Helen said...

Robert the Biker,

How dare you come here and talk with my commenters like this. You have no argument, only personal attacks because of your own innate fear of powerlessness. You will make up other excuses for yourself but there are none. Please refrain from commmenting here in the future.

7:34 AM, July 03, 2008  
Blogger James Landrith said...

Wow. Snoop Diggity-DANG-Dawg really is out of control now too.

So, I answer to him now? That is what he is saying.

He is now a full-blown troll and not contributing anything to the conversation.

2:31 PM, July 03, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You have no argument, only personal attacks because of your own innate fear of powerlessness.

Ohhh, Helen, that sounds like such liberal victimhood drivel. I never expected to hear YOU say such a thing. Tsk tsk.

Robert the Biker isn't fearful, he's frustrated with the now common spectacle of everyone and their brother claiming victimhood status over what should have been a non-traumatic, albeit extremely strange, event. I've opined above that I don't believe for a minute that "Mike" was traumatized by the incident that night. Rape is sex without consent, so he was indeed raped, but you and Mike are acting as if all rapes are created equal in terms of their violence, humiliation, and emotional impact. To hear you and Mike say it, he might as well have been shackled, clothes torn to pieces from his body, whipped raw, peed on, then anally gang raped by a pack of homosexual wilders for five hours straight. What Mike got was uninvited sex. What he got was a psycho woman who pleasured herself at Mike's expenses. Mike he got was a bad experience, but not a traumatic experience if we accept Mike's facts of that night. Further, Mike said he had no choice but to continue having sex once he was conscious, but that's not true either. He was MANIPULATED when he was conscious, not physically forced, and sexual manipulation is unfortunate, but its not a crime and it is survivable without eternal pity parties for one's self. Mike's 17-year delayed reaction is way out of bounds from what I believe would have been a normal reaction from most males who found themselves in a similar circumstance. Yes, the woman was psycho. Yes, she was wrong. But Holocaust survivors are more functional than Mike is. Where is his sense of proportion to what happened and his garden-variety resilience. I believe Robert the Biker is just fed up of the same song and dance we hear from these touchy feely liberals and victim mongers, and now you're stating to sound like one.

3:19 PM, July 03, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I didn't read the story. Just from what I read here, if a strange woman hopped on me while I was drunk or whatever, I would be worried about a disease or her being pregnant (child support). If those two issues were cleared up by tests, I would be pissed but not traumatized.

That is why I simply can't put myself in this person's shoes. I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I can understand other posters here who doubt this a bit.

And I am quite surprised by Helen, who is usually a bit more on the money with this stuff. Oh well, I misjudged. The "how dare you" is a bit silly. The assertion that it is based on powerlessness is a bit silly.

I'm not trying to cause a ruckus, I'm just a bit perplexed by this whole thread.

3:36 PM, July 03, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, Biker, I actually HAVE a penis and know that erections take place all the time that have nothing to do with being sexually aroused ...

Your problem, bmmg39, is your own innate fear of powerlessness when it comes to your penis. You will make up other excuses for your penis, but there are none. Please refrain from commenting here in the future.

3:55 PM, July 03, 2008  
Blogger Helen said...

Richard and JG,

Yep, men should just suck it up and take whatever sexual abuse comes their way--and of course, never act or appear upset by it! That'll teach everyone that they are not victims. From what I gather, you all are saying that men should just bend over and take it--literally. How that is being anything but a victim is beyond me but hey, to each, his own.

4:38 PM, July 03, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

...men should just suck it up and take whatever sexual abuse comes their way...

JG said he's be pissed. I said the same. Biker Robert is already pissed (and he hasn't even met her yet). "Mike" had ever reason to be one very pissed off gentleman. What lacks credibility is that a normally adjusted, emotionally stable man would feel "traumatized" by the facts that Mike gave us, so traumatized, in fact, that he requires psychotherapy 17-years after the fact.

From what I gather, you all are saying that men should just bend over and take it ...

No. I did not say that. Neither did JG. Neither did Robert the Biker. If some woman "rides" you without your consent because you were not conscious, you should get yourself checked out for any disease the psycho woman might have been carrying, and you should be really, really pissed off. In fact, I suggest that if Mike had allowed himself to get really, really pissed off, if he had responded normally he wouldn't have had emotional "flood gates" opening up for him 17 years later. That he did have problems almost two decades later tells me he had some pretty serious mental health issues before he ever met psycho lady.

... but hey, to each, his own.

Now there's the Dr. Helen we know and love!

5:05 PM, July 03, 2008  
Blogger Trust said...

@helen: "men should just suck it up and take whatever sexual abuse comes their way--and of course, never act or appear upset by it!"


Interestingly, I think that though men and women often face different types of struggles and oppressions, they can usually find a parallel.

My sisters always used to complain growing up that men could have as many sex parners as they wanted to and no one seemed to care, but women had to constantly keep their sexuality in check to avoid being called sluts. They were right.

Similarly, but less noticed, is that men go through the same mind-warp over their emotions. We are always on egg shells trying not to be labeled a wimp. For us, if we show our feelings, we're either insensitive bastards or wussies.

It's strange to frequently hear from many women that basically, even though they don't use these words, that we should be more like them, while we know full well that we could never get away with being as emotional (that isn't an insult to women, it's just something similar to what they go through being calle sluts by men with far more partners in their history.)

Best wishes,
Trust

6:24 PM, July 03, 2008  
Blogger Cham said...

Who are we to determine what affects Mike and what doesn't affect him? Mike went through something that was traumatic for him, he was raped. Yes, he needs professional help and hopefully he's getting some to recognize what happened and to be able to move on. What might affect one person to an extreme may only be a personal blip on someone else's radar. I know I wouldn't want to have sex against my will while inebriated and unable to do anything about it, knowing full well going to the authorities would do me no good, but others may have a different opinion on the matter.

Trust:

I have a male friend who is a sex fiend. He has sex with 10 different women a week. Yet, one of his favorite topics of conversation is to make an assessment on whether any of the ladies he has bedded are "sluts" (in his words). Last week when he started up on his slut judgments I told him that he was the biggest slut of them all. He seemed truly shocked that one could attach the slut label to a man, and that he was worthy of such a title. I assured him he was.

7:05 PM, July 03, 2008  
Blogger bmmg39 said...

Ruh-roh! Looks like I hit a nerve with Robbie and his Big Wheel!

"Ooooo, good for you; do you keep it in the drawer next to your wank mags then?"

Since you're the one who evidently believes that all sex should be welcomed by a man, I surmise that your collection of spank mags would put anyone else's here to shame.

"...and my experience of actual fear is that your dick shrinks up until you think you'll never find it again."

Does this mean you've experienced fear within the confines of sex? If not, then I'm trying to contemplate just what scenario has you frightened and taking inventory of your genitalia.

"This asshole is not a victim of RAPE, I'm sorry that he and cunts like him - such as your self - are losing out on the opportunity to make him some sort of poster boy for male rape, but thems the breaks
Fuck You."

Such talk. I'm trying to figure out just what is the cause of such strong opposition to "Mike" and his story. If you don't believe him to be a victim, fine. Feel free to STFU and move on. And yet you so vociferously deny his victimhood as though you had some ulterior agenda. Ooh, wait! Is it that your greatest desire is to receive unrequested sex from a woman while you're fast asleep, and you're afraid that society frowning upon such non-consensual sex will lead to your receiving less of it? It's all so clear now.

7:10 PM, July 03, 2008  
Blogger bmmg39 said...

Richard: "In fact, I suggest that if Mike had allowed himself to get really, really pissed off, if he had responded normally he wouldn't have had emotional 'flood gates' opening up for him 17 years later."

Sure, because no one else in recorded history has ever repressed a traumatic event for such a long period of time! "Mike" is the first one! (Wow...)

Cham: "Who are we to determine what affects Mike and what doesn't affect him?"

That's a pretty good way to pose the question, Cham. Telling "Mike" he can't really be affecting by it is like telling someone, "You shouldn't be offended by that." You either are or you aren't; whether or not someone else would be offended is immaterial.

"I have a male friend who is a sex fiend. He has sex with 10 different women a week. Yet, one of his favorite topics of conversation is to make an assessment on whether any of the ladies he has bedded are 'sluts' (in his words). Last week when he started up on his slut judgments I told him that he was the biggest slut of them all. He seemed truly shocked that one could attach the slut label to a man, and that he was worthy of such a title. I assured him he was."

Yup. All this crap comes from the same place. The people who think Mike's female rapist "did him a favor" are the same ones who criticize women for having multiple partners while simultaneously judging men positively for it.

7:17 PM, July 03, 2008  
Blogger Trust said...

@ Cham: "I have a male friend who is a sex fiend. He has sex with 10 different women a week. Yet, one of his favorite topics of conversation is to make an assessment on whether any of the ladies he has bedded are "sluts" (in his words). Last week when he started up on his slut judgments I told him that he was the biggest slut of them all. He seemed truly shocked that one could attach the slut label to a man, and that he was worthy of such a title. I assured him he was."

If that is the standard he applies to women, then he is a whore as well. Stupid, as if only men should enjoy sex.

Likewise, it's unfair when men are labeled insensitive bastards when they don't show feelings and wussies when they do. My wife has actually played that card--if she does something negative to me, if I get mad the attitude is I'm mean or a crab ass, and if i'm hurt the attitude is a RealMan would be able to take it. If I have no reaction, I'm insensitive. I'm not going to slam my wife, it doesn't happen a lot. Fact remains when she's hurt, I'm mean and I need to change and when I'm hurt, I'm a wimp and I need to change. Sort of like your friend's double standard.

9:11 PM, July 03, 2008  
Blogger Cham said...

Trust:

Figure the name calling is a good thing. When someone calls somebody a name it is a big clue that there is something deficient with the namecaller. Being called mean or a crabass is really no different than being called a bitch or a nag. Insensitive bastard = cold hearted woman. Wussy = crybaby. People have all sorts of labels for others who may be displeased with their own behavior.

Mr. Lambrith certainly has elicited a tremendous amount of name calling. Clearly, what happened to him has hit a nerve with the commenters. Would people be more sympathetic if he was a 45 year old computer programmer with 2 kids at the time of his rape instead of a 19 year old marine in the best shape of his life? Does our culture insist that men appear to be in control of everything all the time, and do people get an icky feeling when a man admits he wasn't in control for a few minutes?

Take some of the most recent posts on this blog and you can see the quandary. You have the post about the NYT article which talks about both man and woman taking care of household duties. Should men be expected to take on more household chores or would that be going against their manhood and give them less control? We have a number of commenters on that thread that think that if a man shares more household duties it will compromise his status in the marriage. You can take that line of reasoning one step further in this rape case, if a man shows his discomfort with non-consensual sex does that make him a wussy (or not in control)?

You can also look at the issue of "Save the Males, why women should care". There is a commenter on that thread questioning why the book claims it is the responsibility of women to save the males. Do men need saving and do they need saving by women? Again, are men in control?

Maybe we should be asking ourselves whether, as a culture, it is absolutely imperative for men to appear to be in control all the time in all situations?

8:36 AM, July 04, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Too bad everyone doesn't realize they could have a purpose in life. A purpose for being here. An opportunity to leave this place better than they found it. Or rather to leave society better than they found it.

Too often, I resemble that remark. In that respect, I would be happy to be able to say I was the lone ranger.

Alas, unless everyone participates with equal aplomb, the "golden rule" is but pie in the sky.

8:37 AM, July 04, 2008  
Blogger Trust said...

Cham, I agree with a lot of what you say. But one area where I disagree is with control--there are times when men are in control, often inappropriately. But women are in control far more than many admit or realize. In fact, often when they play the victim, it is really a manipulation to be in control while making someone else the culprit. I think this scenario is more common than many care to admit in the marriage and divorce dynamic.

Certainly not always true, but I think it is true more often than one cares to admit. Much like how you say "is it absolutely imperative for men to appear to be in control all the time in all situations," one could also say "is it absolutely imperative for women to appear the victim in all situations?"

My mom, who was a master of the "I'm oppressed" card and a pro at making my dad the culprit in everything, used to always say to us "just wait until your father gets home." It would give the appearance that dad was the guy in charge, when in reality mom was the judge, jury, and set the sentence.

9:36 AM, July 04, 2008  
Blogger Toysoldier said...

Rape is sex without consent, so he was indeed raped, but you and Mike are acting as if all rapes are created equal in terms of their violence, humiliation, and emotional impact.

Despite one's condescending tone, I actually agree with this point. Every act that qualifies as rape is not necessarily equally violent or necessarily equally humiliating. The emotional impact, however, can be the same if the person raped is that traumatized. For example, I know men who were fondled and masturbated a few times as children who suffered far more emotional impact than someone like me who grew up having sex with adults. The difference may lie in that the fact that most people have relatively normal lives and therefore the shock of being violated in such a manner at an older age may have a greater effect. In contrast, I cannot recall any time it did not occur and so I considered being made to have sex with adults normal and essentially became used to the violence, humiliation and emotional impact (although I technically little to no emotion at all).

Therefore, It is reasonable to assume the same would hold true for adults (and to be honest I think it is a stretch to call a 19-year-old a grown man), which is why one can find women who have been sexually harassed or fondled who react similarly or worse than women who were forcibly raped.

So to the extent that sometimes people may react in a fashion that seems like an overreaction to their assault, I agree. However, this...

What Mike got was uninvited sex. What he got was a psycho woman who pleasured herself at Mike's expenses.

... certainly deserves Mike's traumatized reaction, just as it would if Mike were female and realized 17 years later how traumatized she was. One uses passive language, yet what one describes is clearly a traumatizing act. Few people want "uninvited sex" from a "psycho," and they certainly would not just brush off that they woke up from drunken unconsciousness to someone using their body for sex. They may attempt to brush it off, however, those kinds of violations have a way of affect a person subconsciously.

Mike he got was a bad experience, but not a traumatic experience if we accept Mike's facts of that night.

What one personally feels the reaction to such an act should be is irrelevant. It is not one's place to decide for others how they should and should not react. Yes, there are plenty of people who on the surface appear less traumatized despite having had technically worse experiences than Mike (although I detest making such comparisons). However, again it is not one's place to decide for other how traumatized they are or are not. One has no means of actually determining that, so essentially all one is doing is projecting one's own feelings onto others, which makes little sense and ultimately fails to prove one's point.

10:13 AM, July 04, 2008  
Blogger Toysoldier said...

Also, I thought it was worth noting that the idea that women raping men can do no physical harm to them is not true:

Q. How does a broken penis occur?

A. Dr. Levine states that in most cases, the penis breaks during sexual intercourse when the penis is fully erect. At full erection, the penis is the most vulnerable. If, during this time, it hits an immovable object, or a hard object, it can break just like an arm or a leg. In most cases of a broken penis, it occurs during sexual intercourse while the woman is on top of the man.

Q. How will I know if my penis is broken?

A. You will know. The first thing you will hear is a snap. Then you will feel pain that you have never before felt. You may even experience blood. Although the penis is broken, it will not break off, according to Dr. Levine. Of all the cases of a broken penis, there is no single incidence of a penis breaking off.


Obviously, instances of rape are more likely going to include rough and/or violent sex, so it is quite possible for women to cause men very serious, permanent damage using their vaginas.

10:57 AM, July 04, 2008  
Blogger bmmg39 said...

"However, again it is not one's place to decide for other how traumatized they are or are not."

That's a major point in all of this. According to THE VICTIM -- the person who was at the receiving end of this -- it was traumatizing. Confoundingly, people to whom this DIDN'T happen are trying to tell the person to whom this DID happen how he should be feeling.

3:48 PM, July 04, 2008  
Blogger pockosmum said...

"Every act that qualifies as rape is not necessarily equally violent or necessarily equally humiliating.....To hear you and Mike say it, he might as well have been shackled, clothes torn to pieces from his body, whipped raw, peed on, then anally gang raped by a pack of homosexual wilders for five hours straight."

How do you propose that he make that kind of rationalization? How do you propose that he modulate his emotional reaction to adjust for your assertion that he shouldn't be feeling what he is, because his rape wasn't the worst rape to ever occur? That's kind of ridiculous reasoning...I had PTSD after the '95 quake in Kobe...irrational fears that my family would die or disappear if they went to work or school. I should have checked to see if my experience was worse than the Northridge quake exactly one year earlier to see if I was affected to a reasonable degree? Or ceased to have any residual fear after seeing that the victims of the Indonesia quake were so much worse off than I was? After all my experience was so much less violent than it could have been...perhaps if all my family had been killed and I'd been impaled by glass or a beam I'd have had the 'right' to my PTSD, by your reasoning.

How the hell do people think they get to decide how upset someone else should be?

8:45 PM, July 04, 2008  
Blogger cinderkeys said...

"To hear you and Mike say it, he might as well have been shackled, clothes torn to pieces from his body, whipped raw, peed on, then anally gang raped by a pack of homosexual wilders for five hours straight."

If I had a choice between the above scenario and some guy having sex with me while I was semi-conscious, I'd choose sex while semi-conscious. But that doesn't mean the second option isn't also rape. And it doesn't mean it wouldn't be traumatic.

3:33 AM, July 05, 2008  
Blogger cinderkeys said...

Apologies for the double post, but I just realized what I found so shocking about the vitriolic responses here and on the PJM site.

I expected some people to say, "Mike was obviously raped. What that woman did was very wrong."

I expected other people to say, "A man cannot maintain an erection if he is not aroused. Therefore, Mike is either lying about the whole event, or lying about not enjoying it."

I did NOT expect anyone to chime in with, "Looks like ol' Mike got sexually assaulted, but what's the big deal -- why doesn't he get over it already?"

Yeesh. I thought we'd come farther than this.

3:59 AM, July 05, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK, no longer speechless concerning the subject matter of this thread.

I "lost my virginity" at the age of 12, the summer between 6th and 7th grade. She was 28.

I watched more than participated, (it was oral) a bit detached, as I was not sure what was happening, except that I had seen some playboy centerfolds before, as a friend's dad had a subscription.

The verdict on the experience is still out, after 43 years.

10:29 AM, July 05, 2008  
Blogger Swifty Quick said...

He made a bad choice. As a result, she had him cornered, and she used it to get what she wanted. Live, learn, and go forth the wiser. End of therapy. Put a quarter in the jar by the door on your way out.

Would I say the same thing to a female rape victim? Depending on the circumstances, quite likely.

Much of the air went out of my sympathy for female rape victims about the time of the first Gulf War, 1991. After years and years and years of being told by feminists and others, but mainly by feminists, how horrible rape is, how utterly devastating rape is to the victim, how it destroys a woman immeasurably, yada, yada, yada, and me blindly accepting those claims and taking them at face value, along came the issue of women serving in combat. The feminists were advocating for women serving in combat, seeing it necessary for men and women to be truly equal. One of the arguments against assigning women front line duties, a reason why throughout history women have never been sent to the front, is because if captured opposing soldiers would have their way with them in the most brutal ways imaginable. The concept of "rape pillage and plunder" is more than a mere literary device. The feminists weren't giving up. "So what?", they said. "Rape isn't so bad. There are many things much worse than rape."

It was then that I realized that this whole discussion was always just a political game, and rape was just the football being used.

10:57 AM, July 05, 2008  
Blogger Jack Steiner said...

Empathy for others is a funny sort of thing. So many people look at situations and decide that unless that particular scenario bothers them, there is no reason to feel badly for the person involved in it.

3:05 PM, July 06, 2008  
Blogger Swifty Quick said...

There are just too many victims milking it, mopping up on whatever strokes or goodies there are to be derived from that status in today's world. Ya kinda get calloused. Leastways I do.

11:57 PM, July 06, 2008  
Blogger James Landrith said...

Okay Zeb, that sounds like an honest answer.

However, if it didn't happen to you it - your response and condescending "therapy" session are essentially meaningless and an attempt to make a political point at the expense of those who've endured an experience you can't possibly comprehend.

You weren't raped and therefore you don't know what it feels like to deal live with it.

It isn't as simple as you might like to think - and you have no real experience with which to validate your unqualified opinion.

12:13 AM, July 07, 2008  
Blogger bmmg39 said...

Put plainly:

if this didn't happen to you, then it's not up to you to decide how someone should feel if it DID happen to him.

Furthermore, if it DID happen to you, you STILL don't have the right to tell him how he should feel...

5:59 PM, July 07, 2008  
Blogger Swifty Quick said...

This is America. I have every right.

2:30 AM, July 08, 2008  
Blogger Jack Steiner said...

There are just too many victims milking it

How many victims have taken advantage of their position and how do you know they have.

2:50 AM, July 08, 2008  
Blogger Cham said...

Zeb:

This is America. I have every right.

Not necessarily. Living in America doesn't give you a whole heck of a lot of "rights". If you want to acknowledge anyone for allowing you to post here it would be Helen. She can delete everything you've typed here with a click of a button.

Come to my blog and you wouldn't get past comments moderation.

7:42 AM, July 08, 2008  
Blogger Swifty Quick said...

Not necessarily. Living in America doesn't give you a whole heck of a lot of "rights". If you want to acknowledge anyone for allowing you to post here it would be Helen. She can delete everything you've typed here with a click of a button.

Come to my blog and you wouldn't get past comments moderation.


EXACTLY!! Thank you! You are Exhibit "A" for the proposition that you DO have a right to be a Nazi in in your own home in America.

But you won't win a prize from me because I'm not talking about that right. I'm talking about my right to have an opinion and to express it whenever, wherever, and to whomever I deem appropriate (and I deem it appropriate here), leaving to others the right to walk away and not listen to me, or the right to opt to not read me, as the case may be. Happily, as it is, people queue up to pay me $250/hr for my opinion, so I'm thinking I'm not too worried about your little blog, grasshopper.

1:29 PM, July 08, 2008  
Blogger Swifty Quick said...

How many victims have taken advantage of their position and how do you know they have.

Your guess is as good as mine. And when you do your guessing be aware that I'm talking about the culture of victimology generally, of which the traumatized by rape victims are just one relatively little subpart.

2:00 PM, July 08, 2008  
Blogger James Landrith said...

"...my right to have an opinion and to express it whenever, wherever, and to whomever I deem appropriate..."

You are confusing rights with privileges.

You are privileged to post here, this is not a right. In short, your freedom of speech ends where someone else's property begins.

Again - privilege vs. right.

You have a right to an opinion. You do not have a right to express that opinion anywhere you please. However, the property owner (whether it be online or a physical location) can grant you the privilege to express your opinion on said property.

Please learn the difference.

11:20 PM, July 09, 2008  
Blogger v said...

Dr. Helen,

Thank you for publishing James' story.

Here's mine:

http://www.reddit.com/info/6agjq/comments/c03bijiz

and here's some statistics I've collected regarding sexually abused boys and raped men:

http://boysite.info/blog/2008/05/11/86-of-victims-were-not-believed-when-the-abuser-was-female/

http://boysite.info/blog/2008/05/11/yes-a-boy-can-be-sexually-abused-by-a-female/

http://boysite.info/blog/2007/09/26/can-a-boy-be-sexually-abused-by-a-girl-reallypart-1/

8:20 PM, July 20, 2008  
Blogger Lingüista said...

A comment -- though the discussion seems to be over, I thought that it would be worthwhile.

The main point of contention here -- disregarding little inanities about erections and 'he-must-have-enjoyed-it-to' which hopefully are no longer important -- is what exactly constitutes rape, and what the best attitude is for victims of rape, or lesser sexual assault, or in fact any problem in life: "be-a-victim-and-enjoy-the-privileges" vs. "become-wiser-and-move-on".

Must there be (threat of) physical violence for it to be rape? I suppose both opinions and the law vary about that. People may legitimately vary in their opinions about (threat of) physical violence, penetration, etc. as preconditions. To my mind, however, if a person is forced -- meaning by this not necessarily physically, but simply being placed in a situation in which any other choice but sex would be very detrimental to the person is rape.
And I mean VERY detrimental -- it can't be just 'have sex with me or else I'll cry!', but rather 'have sex with me or else I'll put you in jail as a rapist and you can kiss your career goodbye!'. To those who disagree -- any reason why?

But there are 'better' and 'worse' cases, right? Yes. Which is why you have mitigating or aggravating circumstances, and why judges are given a certain leeway in giving sentences -- from X to Y years of jail, plus a fine of from X to Y dollars... It would certainly be worse to be repeatedly gang-raped by five bad-ass drugged thieves and then have a coat hanger shoved up one's ass -- which is why, if this had happened, the thieves in question would deserve a much more severe punishment than the woman in Mike's story.

Now, on Mike's reaction: is he right to be traumatized by his experience? Isn't he exaggerating a little? Shouldn't he have just shrugged his shoulders, cursed a little and then gone on with his life?

Trauma is a funny thing. Many soldiers coming back from war have war-related traumas; but then again, many soldiers with similar stories do not. Raped women can be severely damaged and haunted by memories of their rape; some of them, however, recover pretty well and look at what happened -- even in cases with physical violence -- as 'a lesson from life'. Risking to sound politically incorrect, I'll suggest that even not all sexually abused children will be traumatized -- some will develop just fine.

Why this difference? Why can't we take a certain event and label it as 100% traumatic? Why do we always have some people who recovered fast, or weren't really bothered by it?

I can't say, but for my part I think people have different thresholds. Some people might be 'traumatized' -- i.e. end up having uncontrollable, unjustified feelings of fear and panic, neurotic/psychotic behavior, etc. -- by having cancer and suddenly having to face their own mortality; to others, it would take seeing their whole family being slowly tortured and killed by a gang of saddistic psychos to get the same effect.

So how can we tell? Well, the person him/herself has to know. Just as in the case of all mental disorders, trauma makes you feel bad. So you need to go talk to someone who could help -- say, a psychotherapist. Just like those who have OCD, bipolar disorder, various kinds of neuroses, psychoses, etc. They feel something is wrong with them, so they seek help. It's the same for trauma: if someone thinks s/he has traumatic problems that affect his/her life, if s/he feels s/he needs help, then s/he should go out and find help. You know when your hand hurts, even if other people disagree.

So, if Mike felt traumatized, he should look for help. If he is suffering, then he is suffering, period. I'm sure there are people who would not have suffered (much) in his situation, but they cannot tell Mike that he can't possibly be suffering. (It would be like an Eskimo telling me that I can't possibly feel cold when it's +5F out there, just because s/he would not feel cold in such 'high' temperatures...)

Now, some of the posters are apparently concerned with the exaggerated use of the word 'victim'. Everybody wants to be a 'victim', because there is in today's society a certain privilege, a moral righteousness, associated with being a victim who can point his/her fingers at other people and call them culprits. So: is Mike exaggerating in his reaction? Has he been 'conditioned' by a 'culture of victimhood' that says if you were slightly hurt at some point you're a 'victim'?

Well, again, it's one of those things on which it's hard to draw a line. There are degrees of victimhood; so we all should understand that being a Holocaust survivor is not the same as being the survivor of an earthquake, which is not the same as surviving a car accident, which is not the same as having a broken heart, etc. etc. etc. If you prefer, then maybe we should give up the word 'victim' and simply talk about the consequences that certain life experiences can have on different people.

So to me, the question is not whether or not Mike was a 'victim', but how well he dealt with the consequences of what happened to him. If he says he had panic attacks, then, by my book, he clearly needs help and has issues to work on. The only way for this not to be true is if he were faking the panic attacks just to get attention; in this case, the situation would be very different.

(I must admit, however, I did get curious when Mike said it was his own experience with his wife as a rape survivor that brought back his own problem. Could it be that some of her experience -- perhaps more violent than his? -- has rubbed off on him, and colored his own experience with darker colors? I'm not accusing him of anything, I'm just sincerely curious.)

Finally, I'd like to mention one thing. I am also a 'rape survivor' (though those who consider Mike's experience to be just a 'bad night' would certainly think the same about mine). However, although I was quite negatively affected by the experience in the following days, after a few months I already had the attitude that some of the posters above mentioned: it was just a bad day, I have worse things to worry about, it's just a lesson from life, let's move on now. And to this very day, this is still my attitude. Maybe I'm lying to myself, but frankly I don't feel traumatized; I just had a bad experience (like, say, being mugged on the street). HOWEVER, unlike some other posters, I do NOT think that Mike should have the same reaction that I did, because he is a different person. And, for the record, this has NOTHING to do with being a "wimp" or a "tough guy"; it has much more to do with your life history and your psyche.

9:37 PM, July 21, 2008  
Blogger bmmg39 said...

Thank you for adding a thoughtful and thorough post to the discussion. People are still checking in.

1:23 PM, July 26, 2008  
Blogger Serket said...

What happened to James/Mike was very horrible. I am still a virgin so that will definitely alter my view of this. The woman was five years older than him, he was really drunk, she was pregnant and he didn't want to hurt the baby and he was very afraid that once the law got involved the results would turn upside down.

I think it is disturbing that so many people are dismissing his claim. I also am disturbed by the men who will take any kind of sex from a woman even if it is forced. I definitely have strong urges for sex, but there are women I do not want to have sex with and for one of those women to force themselves on me would be extremely traumatic. I have no idea what I would do in such a situation, but I would be strongly tempted to fight her off even knowing the witch hunt society we live in.

12:51 AM, August 05, 2008  
Blogger Serket said...

I am not a very strong man, so I think it is likely that a strong woman could overpower me.

Pockosmum:

Thanks for sharing the "Firsts by American Women." I was surprised to learn that there have been women composers. Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the House was a Republican. Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to receive votes at a major parties National Convention was a Republican. Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to be on the Supreme Court was selected by a Republican President. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Hispanic woman elected to Congress was a Republican. Condoleezza Rice, the first black female Secretary of State is a Republican.

Elizabeth: Female lawyers were arguing cases in front of the Supreme Court well before the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

From that website mentioned above: Belva Ann Lockwood became the first woman to argue a case in the Supreme Court in 1879, the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.

(By the way, when I turned 18, I tried to register for the draft. I got a letter from the government turning me down because I was female. It's not even optional for women to register.)

Good for you!

Buckeye Tom: If the men were single, I doubt they would be so accommodating for a total stranger who was pregnant.

There is also the point that she already is carrying another man’s baby.

11:27 PM, August 05, 2008  
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