Ted Ts'o is a rape apologist and why this matters

[mjg59]

(This post contains some discussion of rape and sexual assault but does not go into any specifics)

There was a brief controversy at Linux.conf.au back in 2011. The final keynote speaker gave a compelling presentation on online privacy, including some slides containing sexualised imagery. This was against the terms of the conference policies, and resulted in an apology from the conference organisers and the speaker. The situation was unfortunate but well handled, and that should have been the end of it.

Afterwards, there was some pushback on the conference mailing list. Concerns were raised about the policy being overly restrictive and the potential for it to be used to stifle speech that influential groups disagreed with. I don't agree with these arguments, but discussion of why policies have been implemented is completely natural and provides an opportunity for a community to determine what its expected standards are.

And then Ted Ts'o effectively called rape victims liars[1]. At first I assumed that this was just some sort of horrific failure to understand the implications of what he was saying, so I emailed him to check. The reply I got drew a pretty clear distinction between the case of a drunk college student raping another drunk college student in their room and the case of knifepoint rape in a dark park. You know, the difference between accidental rape and rape rape. The difference between the one any of us might have done and the one that only bad people do. Legitimate rape and the "rape" that those feminists talk about. The distinction that lets rapists convince themselves that they didn't really rape anyone because they weren't holding a knife at the time.

Ted Ts'o argues that only a small percentage of rape really counts as what people think of as rape. Ted Ts'o is a rape apologist.

There's an ongoing scandal in the UK at the moment. A well known DJ, Jimmy Savile, died last year. He grew up in a working class family, but through hard work and natural talent was one of the most significant figures in promoting pop music in the UK in the 50s and 60s, and worked in various parts of the BBC for the best part of 30 years. He spent significant amounts of time raising money for charity, and it's estimated that he raised over £40 million for various causes. Since his death, around 300 people have accused him of sexually abusing them. The BBC is desperately trying to explain why it cancelled an expose shortly before it aired. Multiple people who worked there at the time claim that everyone knew he was involved in indecent activities, but saying anything would risk both their career and the charities that depended on his fundraising. Nobody said anything, and he was allegedly free to continue his abuse.

Ted Ts'o is a significant figure in the Linux kernel community. He has expressed abhorrent beliefs that damage that community. Condemnation was limited to a mailing list with limited readership, meaning, effectively, that nobody said anything. Last week the Ada Initiative published a blog post pointing out the damage that did, and I realised that my effective silence was not only helping to alienate 50% of the population from involving themselves with Linux, it was also implicitly supporting my community leadership. I was giving the impression that I was basically fine with our community leaders telling people that it wasn't really rape if you were both drunk enough. I was increasing the chances of members of our community being sexually assaulted. Silence is endorsement. Saying nothing is not ok.

In the absence of an apology and explanation from Ted, I'll be interacting with him to the bare minimum that I'm compelled to as a result of my job. I won't be attending any Linux Foundation events he's involved in organising. If I'm running any events, I won't be inviting him. At a time when we're finally making progress in making our community more open and supportive, we don't need leaders who undermine that work. Support organisations who encourage that progress, not the people who help drag us back.

Footnotes

[1]The original archive has vanished. I've put up a copy of the relevant thread here. Throughout, Ted states that he's actually arguing against the idea that women need to be frightened of sexual assault, and not against the definition of rape. Except saying things like This one does a pretty good job of taking apart the Koss / Ms. Magazine study, which is the source for the "1 in 4" number. For example, it points out that over half of those cases were ones where undergraduates were plied with alcohol, and did not otherwise involve using physical force or other forms of coercion is difficult to read in any way other than "Half of the people you're counting as having been raped haven't really been raped", and favourably referring to an article that asserts that the rate of false rape reports is probably close to 50% is pretty strong support for the idea that many rape victims are liars.

(Update 2012/10/30: Adam Williamson suggests in this comment that this mail is a better example of Ted's behaviour - there's some explicit victim blaming and a lot of "Is that rape" questioning with the obvious implication that the answer should be "no". Ted Ts'o is a victim blaming rape apologist.)

(Update 2012/11/05: It's been suggested that I haven't been sufficiently clear about which of Ted's statements justify my claims. So, here we go.

In this mail, Ted links to and endorses this article. He explicitly links to it because of its treatment of rape statistics. Quoting directly from that article:
the rate of false reports is at least 9 percent and probably closer to 50 percent
Ted explicitly endorses an article that claims that a significant percentage of reported rapes are false. The study that generated that figure is held in poor regard by other researchers in the field - Australian police figures indicate that 2.1% of rape accusations were classified as false. Ted asserts that he was trying to argue against poor use of statistics, so it's a fair assumption that he agrees with the alternative statistics that he's citing. Ted believes that many rape victims are making false accusations. Ted believes that many rape victims are liars.

Again in this mail, Ted argues against a claimed figure that 1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted. One of his arguments is that Also found in the Koss study, although not widely reported, was the statistic that of the women whom she classified as being raped (although 73% refused to self-classify the event as rape), 46% of them had subsequent sex with the reported assailant. Ted disagrees with a statistic because some rape victims subsequently have sex with the reported assailant. This means that Ted believes that this indicates that they were not really raped. Ted is a rape apologist.)

Comments

Consent- Yes Means Yes

[(Anonymous)]

The problem with stating that statistics around rape are hyperbolized is that it downplays the grave importance of a social problem and allows us to ignore dehumanizing acts of rape which occur on a daily basis. Stating that rape statistics are false or misleading allows us to mask the problem of rape, sweep it under the rug, and ignore it. Too often the involvement of drugs or alcohol is used as an excuse for a crime that should be neither ignored or unpunished. A person who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs has every right to say no, and this must be respected in the same way that a no from a sober individual is. The lack of clarity in Tso’s statements sends an erroneous message that rape only occurs- or most often occurs- in instances of force. This is frankly untrue.

On the other hand, the implication that a person cannot give consent when they are intoxicated or otherwise under the influence of a substance is problematic. If I have voluntarily imbibed alcohol or drugs and voluntarily and without force or coercion decide to have sex, then that is my right. As a woman, I do not appreciate this section of the legal code which stipulates that I cannot give consent under the influence, as it is simply a subtler method of controlling my body, my actions, and my sexuality. It assumes that I cannot make choices for myself and must be protected- a problematic and patriarchal assumption.

In thinking about rape, definitions can be very problematic. In my opinion, much of this has to do with the negative framing of the rape question. ‘No means no’ puts emphasis upon the victim to resist the advances of a perpetrator. A more positive oriented dialogue of ‘yes means yes’ puts emphasis upon both parties to ask for, and grant consent. This line of thinking entirely changes the paradigm around the issue of rape, and was coined in the feminist theory book ‘Yes means Yes: Visions of Female Empowerment and a World without Rape.’ (http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/) The problem with the ‘No means no’ dialogue is that it does not allow room for women’s sexuality and sexual empowerment. By changing our thinking scheme to one of ‘yes means yes’, we allow women- and men- to embrace their own sexuality and acknowledge the fact that we as women also positive rights to sex and sexuality and that in instances of sexual intercourse, it is important that consent always be granted, rather than relying on an ambiguous situation in which consent may neither have been granted nor denied. In this line of thinking, no still means no in all instances, whether or not force is involved. And yes can be changed to no- that is, consent can be retracted. But it expands upon this so that the only instances in which consent is granted is when yes means yes- whether these situations are sober or intoxicated. This is an empowering paradigm shift in thinking around rape, as it no long depicts a victim, but rather a sexually empowered individual who is able to make their own choices in regards to sex and control their own body.

I think your all missing the point

[(Anonymous)]

With all due respect to posters on this topic. Whether Ted was arguing right or wrong statistics in what he posted, or what was his original presentation, is entirely irrelevant. Rape IS rape no matter how you want to argue situations or semantics to justify bad behaviour. The point I would make is simply this... Ted chose to get involved in the Open Source Community, and indeed became a "leader" of sorts, based upon his technical prowess no doubt. In that role he assumed not only to support the bits of software he supports, the open source community concept, also the intimated responsibilities of a leader. While I think that Ted points out some valid concerns over statistics, one being they are easily manipulated to garner the desired outcome, I don't think his choice of subject was a good one since it overshadows any potential value he may have attempted to reveal about bad statistics. Mat is correct in his stance simply because Rape, in any form, is plain wrong behaviour that needs to be totally eliminated from our society.

Steven Snow

Re: I think your all missing the point

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, Rape is rape. But is it rape if the "victim" does not call it rape?

Further post in the thread

[(Anonymous)]

I've already posted about this in a thread, but I think it deserves a top-level comment, as I missed it for a while.

I think Matthew didn't actually call out the worst post Ted made in the thread. For those uncomfortable with the 'rape apology' allegation as it relates to the posts Matthew cited directly, I encourage you to read this post, which to my mind is far worse and constitutes much clearer evidence for the accusation:

http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0038.html

There is no excuse for this kind of 'thought experiment' bullshit. The post harps extensively on hypothetical scenarios that intentionally blur the very edges of the issue of consent. Most damagingly, it _repeatedly_ more or less baldly states that women who are raped when they are drunk are partly to blame for getting drunk (this is couched in a silly rhetorical trick of sex reversal, but the intent is clear):

"And if he was still raped, does he bear any responsibility for put himself into a situation where Alice could ask and ask him until he said yes?"

"All aside from the legal question, there's also the question, in the Alice and Bob thought experiment, regardless of whether Alice is guilty of raping Bob (assume that Bob was inebriated and couldn't give consent, and she knew that Bob was drunk), should Bob be faulted for putting him into a situation where he was so drunk that he couldn't take responsibility for himself? What if it was pretty clear that he regularly did this *because* he could lose control and not take responsibility for what he did? Suppose he hadn't yet had sex without giving consent? Would, should he, face opprobrium for his actions? If yes, does that magically go away once he is raped, and is now a victim, since that would now be blaming the victim?"

"Personally, it's not an issue for me because I strongly don't believe in going to parties where a lot of one-night stands are negotiated, nor do I like situations where a lot of alcohol is consumed. So I'm also predisposed to not have a lot of sympathy for both parties --- male or female, attacker or victim --- who put themselves in such situations."

This is unacceptable, intolerable and a clear case of 'rape apology'. Having sex with someone without their consent is rape, and rape is never the fault of the victim. It is completely unacceptable to assign blame to a rape victim for being drunk. I think this is clear and inarguable. Don't blame victims, and don't excuse people who do. Having read that post, I agree entirely with Matthew that Ted was making apologies and excuses for rape, I think that was and is unacceptable, and he should apologize for it.

Re: Further post in the thread

[(Anonymous)]

Two drunk people having sex is stupidity, not rape. And if society decides to call it rape instead, then when happens, both parties should be prosecuted for rape.

Re: Further post in the thread

[(Anonymous)]

Why aren't women required to be responsible for their alcohol consumption? Are we small children? Are we unable to moderate our drinking? Are we unable to think rationally or make safe choices for ourselves? Are we just stupid children that require a big strong man to moderate our behavior for us and to tell us when we've had enough alcohol? I'm really curious here.

If women are truly EQUALS then we should have equal responsibility when it comes to common grown up decisions such as how much, where, and how often to engage in drinking and with whom.

No woman should be getting drunk with a man she doesn't 100% trust, period. This doesn't make ANY of his actions okay if he takes advantage of her, but please don't condescend and patronize to those of us who are actually smart enough not to get drunk with strange men so we can cry wolf in the morning.

I don't believe Ted is making excuses and apologies for rape. I think he's being clear that when there are two grown adults in a situation one has responsibility for not knowingly putting themselves in harms way.

If someone stole my car and I didn't lock it, while it's not my fault some asshole stole my car, most people would look askance at the fact that I hadn't locked it and would tell me so.

If someone broke into my house and I didn't lock it... same thing.

I really don't understand how so many men cannot see how fundamentally patronizing it is to act as if I am responsible for locking my car door or my house and that if I am robbed without doing so that I do have SOME partial responsibility in making that crime easier to accomplish. But yet... I'm not responsible for my own level of drinking.

In the car or house scenario... even when you tell me I should have been more careful, it's still a crime. I'm a victim. The sentence is still the same... but I could have been more careful.

And yet... I can drink as much as I want with whoever I want in any dangerous circumstances I want and if I end up raped... well... let's not blame the victim. The amount of hypocrisy in that and the patronizing condescension to women is just unreal.

So, lemme get this straight

[(Anonymous)]

Based on derived factoids -- identified in your text by use of the qualifier "effectively" -- and, presumably, some sort of a previous failure of communication, you're looking to have a prominent Linux kernel developer publicly drawn and quartered. Were I your squire, I'd suggest that you're tilting at awfully big windmills here.

What does the (seemingly a feminist favourite) topic of rape have to do with the kernel anyhow? What makes the kernel blog feed the appropriate forum? (Were you ejected from the others?)

However, I'm doubtlessly being offensive. Therefore this comment will not pass moderation, not even enough to point out which parts, precisely, count towards that line.

Re: So, lemme get this straight

[(Anonymous)]

You're not being offensive so much as obtuse. Someone in a community that is going around making statements like this needs to be called out within that community, if the situation isn't going to become horribly toxic. Just because the toxicity is of a nature that doesn't affect you because of your gender identity is not a reason to try and silence the discussion.

Re: So, lemme get this straight

[(Anonymous)]

Read the post linked in the 'update 2012-10-30': http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0038.html . You don't need to do any strenuous interpretation or extrapolation of that. It's just flat out odious.

I don't see anywhere that Matthew is asking for anyone to be 'publicly drawn and quartered'. He is acting as a member of the kernel community to make a clear statement that he finds a publicly stated position of someone in a position of leadership and trust in that project unacceptable and that he does not accept or endorse them. It's important for people to do this, because if no-one condemns such statements the obvious message that sends is that everyone finds them just fine. As Matthew said, "Silence is endorsement. Saying nothing is not ok.". If the kernel community, the wider F/OSS community, or *any* community lets messages like this go unchallenged, the implication is that the community accepts them and people who are not happy with them - like, well, pretty much all women - ought to stay away.

What he did ask for is fairly clear at the start of the final paragraph: "In the absence of an apology and explanation from Ted"

An apology and an explanation. That's all. No execution, literal or metaphorical, was asked for.

[(Anonymous)]

Such an utterly depressing failure for either side to engage with the points of the other. Please, I know rationalism is gauche these days, but completely abandoning reason in favour of invective is never going to result in a productive discussion.

[(Anonymous)]

Also, this viewpoint is literally a political angle. One that you might consider horribly invalid, but plenty of people consider valid -- including many women*. [I do not consider it valid myself.] I consider a position of supporting free-market capitalism deeply offensive. I also consider eating animals deeply offensive. These are political viewpoints, which I understand are not shared by everybody. Therefore I don't consider it unacceptable for a community leader to hold these opinions, as virulent as I find them. You will probably claim that these are not comparable fields -- but that just illustrates your own failure, much like you accuse Ted of, to understand my sentiments.

* If you doubt this I strongly urge you to leave the blogosphere and even the tech sector and speak to people in real life. Women have a wide variety of political opinions regarding rape. Of course, due to the cryptofascistic nature of much academic discourse these women are likely to be discounted or told that they have 'false consciousness' -- just another form of the 'derailing' that you accuse Ted of.

[(Anonymous)]

" Therefore I don't consider it unacceptable for a community leader to hold these opinions, as virulent as I find them."

You are perfectly free to state such and try to build a consensus of support for your point of view. Good luck with that. ;)

(for the record, I'm vegetarian and vote bleeding heart socialist at every opportunity...)

[(Anonymous)]

oh, and didn't think of this yesterday, but it could also be noted the F/OSS community has no recorded problem with attracting a representative level of involvement by vegetarians and people who don't support free-market capitalism.

Not an isolated case

[np237.livejournal.com]

This kind of behavior is unfortunately representative, not only of a number of other FLOSS developers, but of a very large part of the population.

People tend to minimize what rape is, they tend to argue that victims are lying (although only a very marginal minority is lying), they tend to minimize the amount of rape that’s going on in our society. All categories of people tend to do that: this includes women, this even includes victims themselves (as Ted fails to point out, they fail to recognize their own story as rape).

In a recent trial here in France, several men recognized guilty of gang rape for several months have been sentenced by a popular jury to a suspended sentence of 3 years in jail. This jury thinks like Ted. Society thinks like Ted.

My overall take on the discussion

[(Anonymous)]

As far as I can see, nobody in the discussion has brought up anything which would justify the "rape apologist" label Matthew Garrett used. Below I address some of the claims made:

"Ted called rape victims liars"
This is false. He questioned some statistics, without making any such general claim. Also, it's rather ironic that the feminist side here then complained about how Ted's mail (the one linked next to this "liars" claim in Matthew Garrett's post) cited a statistic of the majority of the women in a study not themselves classifying the events as rape. In other words, *they* claimed that the women must be denying the truth or intentionally lying, while Ted did not claim that...

"Ted claimed that rape was impossible if both people were drunk enough"
This is false. This lie seems to have been spread by Valerie Aurora. Ted did not claim rape is impossible if both are drunk enough. He was commenting on a claim that sex is always rape if there was no clear informed consent, and noted things can not be quite this simple: two people may have sex while both are drunk beyond the limit of informed consent, and in this symmetrical situation you either have to say that neither was raped despite lack of informed consent, or say that both were rapists themselves. Ted's claim is obviously true.

"Ted thinks rape is the victim's fault, not the rapist's"
This is false. These claims seem to be based on Ted's mail saying "regardless of whether Alice is guilty of raping Bob (assume that Bob was inebriated and couldn't give consent, and she knew that Bob was drunk), should Bob be faulted for putting him into a situation where he was so drunk that he couldn't take responsibility for himself?". Some people have interpreted this to mean Alice was not at fault; this interpretation is false (note the "regardless of whether Alice is guilty"). Ted is in no way condoning the actions of the rapist; he's saying that people who incapacitate themselves by drinking too much may be faulted if they then suffer harm, even if that harm involved a crime by another person. This is an opinion people may disagree with, but it's hardly a rare one, and not specific to rape (even if you think he's wrong, "rape apologist" is certainly not an appropriate label for people disagreeing with you).

"Ted questioned what should be called rape, so he must be against sentencing anyone as a rapist"
This is obviously false as phrased, yet there were various claims that essentially boil down to this. Some people seem to think that any discussion of gray areas (or terminology) is in itself harmful - they want to represent things as simple black and white. But that attitude is dishonest; gray areas do exist. There seems to be little substance to the claims that Ted would have actually said anything unacceptable about this, other than that he discussed gray areas at all.

"Whatever the details of what Ted actually said, the discussion was derailed after his posts, so he's guilty"
So Ted's posts did not help the feminist crowd push their agenda. Regardless of whether this "derailing" is true, and who was to blame for it, this does not justify Valerie Aurora's and Matthew Garrett's attempts to intentionally harm Ted's public reputation. I hope nobody seriously thinks it's OK for them to attack Ted and label him a "rape apologist" just because he's not helping them push their views.

Re: My overall take on the discussion

[mjg59]

Responding to claims that have some relation to what I wrote:

"Ted called rape victims liars"

Ted directly links to and endorses a document that claims the rate of false rape reports is close to 50%. That's not questioning statistics. That's supporting an assertion that almost half of reported rapes are made up. Ted supports the claim that many people who claim to have been raped are lying.

"Ted thinks rape is the victim's fault, not the rapist's"

Ted thinks that, under certain circumstances, rape is partly the victim's fault. Ted blames victims.

"Ted questioned what should be called rape, so he must be against sentencing anyone as a rapist"

Ted clearly questioned whether some cases classified as rape should be classified as rape, in one case on the grounds that some victims later had sex with their attacker. Ted is a rape apologist.

Ted's public reputation is harmed by his own actions, not by mine.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics...

[(Anonymous)]

Garret, you are completely out of context, if you carefully read Tso's posts, he is talking about misleading people with fake statistics... and he is right, moreover, he is not even talking about raping itself. He _NEVER_ said rapists are liars, neither he implied that. By the way, he is just stating the obvious, please go on and read "Lie with statistics" by Darrel Huff and Irving Geis, and then you will understand: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics"....

Now, I have to give it to you, Tso might should have think about illustrating the statistic lies with a less "hot" topic, specially since he is a Kernel hacker, not a statistician or psychologist, but he has the right to speak up his mind, being an engineer myself, it makes my blood boil when people make statistics up and bend them just enough to feel they have a point....

Isaac Uribe

Re: There are lies, damned lies and statistics...

[mjg59]

Ted endorses this article, which says As Stuart Taylor and K. C. Johnson point out in their book Until Proven Innocent, however, the rate of false reports is at least 9 percent and probably closer to 50 percent. Either he agrees with it, in which case he thinks many people who claim to have been raped are liars, or he disagrees with it, in which case why use it as an example of anything?

Statistics, sources, and at the very least Ts'o was enabling rapists.

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry to come in anonymous, Matt I love your work, I'm Jacinta, the OP that Ts'o was originally responding to. I originally brought the statistics into the discussion. I was also lazy in that original email and I regret it immensely. I didn't provide references.

I later rewrote my contribution (with references) and it's a guest post over on the Geek Feminism blog (http://geekfeminism.org/2011/02/09/because-sexual-assault-is-more-common-than-you-think/).

With Ts'o's objections in mind, I went out of my way to pick sources that were Australian-focused from extremely thorough, completely respectable organisations.

Let me quote you the relevant bit (reports are linked to from the blog post):

"The Australia Bureau of Statistics reports that 1 in 5 women and 1 in 20 men have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15 years, where sexual violence includes sexual assault and sexual threat. This gives us minimum numbers because it doesn’t take into account women and men who have experienced sexual violence before the age of 15 years and not since. The US Department of Justice reports that 1 in 6 women will be the victim of a completed or attempted rape at some time in their life.

"Most sexual assaults and rapes are not reported to the police; and the Office of Women’s Policy reports that rape offenders were charged in only 15% of reported rapes. They also found that only 2.1% of reports were designated by the police as false which corroborates other studies demonstrating that the rate of false accusations is very low."

But you know what? The precise numbers didn't actually matter. Whether my number of conference attendees who've experienced sexual violence come out to 36/700 or 45/700 is irrelevant. I was attempting to point out that a significant proportion (about 5%) of attendees have experienced sexual violence at some point in their lives (it's no better if you were a child at the time), and thus a talk that used imagery of sexual assault as a metaphor for the loss of personal freedoms was in extremely poor taste.

This point did not require a discussion of what constitutes rape or sexual assault and I viewed Ts'o's first response as a troll and derailment and didn't respond to him further. I viewed Ts'o's later response as rapist enablement, because by continuing to try to diminish how serious rape is, by trying to draw a line between one kind of non-consent and another kind of non-consent and saying that one kind is less bad somehow, he was (perhaps unintentionally) allowing men who do rape to feel that what they are doing is less bad, more acceptable somehow. That they had an ally in Ts'o, so long as they stayed with the non-violent kind of non-consent. If they merely (deliberately) took their date drinking, and then when their date had had a few too many took them home and badgered them into having sex, that Ts'o would argue that they were both drunk so really it's too hard to tell, or at least that their date is partly at fault. Even if these men make a habit of behaving this way, deliberately. (I don't know that Ts'o would argue that, but his post certainly suggests he might.) Maybe Ts'o doesn't know that this kind of predatory behaviour is common, that 6% of men seem to be willing to admit to doing this kind of thing if you don't use the word "rape". 6%... 42ish men at that LCA talk? (see blog for reference) His thought experiment, even if innocently intended, is enablement.

For what it's worth, the 1 in 4 women sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, 1 in 6 women victims of attempted or completed rape figures have been consistently backed up with studies in Australia, the USA and England. For example, the USA CDC published a study (http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/NISVS/) just last December supporting the 1 in 6 figure: (they actually say "nearly 1 in 5").

Some people on this thread have suggested that "other people" only consider rape to actually be rape if violence has been involved. I suggest to any of you who are reading this, that you get out a bit more, improve your social skills, and then when you can talk to women, ask them. While stranger rape is more terrifying because you can't easily protect yourself from it (other than never going out, never walking alone at night not even to your car on a well lit street, i.e. not having any independence) it's by no means the only kind of rape women regularly protect ourselves from. Many women go on dates, and try to assess whether it's safe to allow our date to walk us back to our car. Many women consider party invites and wonder whether that creepy "nice guy" will be attending, and how we can stay out of his reach. Many women ponder inviting a man into her otherwise empty house, when she doesn't want anything to happen... because if it does, she'll be blamed. The same applies when going into his house.

Most women have been taught to be polite, to not make a fuss, to never hit or punch or be violent, to laugh at jokes that aren't funny so as to not hurt a man's feelings, to comply, to conform and to do unpleasant things to make other people happy. Then (even without alcohol) women can get in a situation where they're being pressured to do things they don't want, and suddenly they need to go against all of that training. Suddenly you're supposed to shout "no", but that might not be enough, and many women were taught to refuse in polite terms not direct "no"s. They're supposed to punch and hit and scratch and push and shove, and run out of the house naked and screaming rather than submit. But most women weren't taught to punch and hit and scratch and push and shove. When many women were kids we were told to let the creepy uncle give us a kiss hello. To let the dodgy friend of the family pull us onto his lap and cuddle us whether we liked it or not. Most women have been taught that our bodily autonomy wasn't really ours. Except, that when we might be raped we're supposed to act completely differently. Note that women are also taught that running out of the house naked and screaming is not acceptable behaviour either (and could result in them getting raped by a stranger). So a lot of women submit, because that's what they've been taught to do for all of their lives and when faced with an unfamiliar and scary situation, we fall back on our training. There doesn't have to be alcohol or violence, but submitting isn't consent. Then what do they do? They blame themselves, because maybe they should have said "no", louder. Or they shouldn't have invited him in, or that they should have known what his intentions were and headed it off sooner (miscommunication), or they should have somehow done more to stop it from happening. But pressuring or forcing someone into having sex with you, when they've indicated unwillingness is rape. Even if the rapist is just emotionally manipulative, rather than violent. Even if they just cajole and sook or just keep nagging. Especially if they've plied the victim with some form of drug to lower their inhibitions. Rape is rape, even without violence, from a stranger or not. Rape is rape. Rape is not the victim's fault. Rape is never the victim's fault. It's the fault of the rapist, 100% the fault of the rapist.

PS: I'm not saying every woman everywhere has been socialised in the way above, or that women can't overcome this dodgy training, but I am saying that many women have been socialised this way, and that first you have to acknowledge it before you can overcome it. I'm also not saying that men don't get any of this training, or different training that has its own disadvantages.

Re: Statistics, sources, and at the very least Ts'o was enabling rapists.

[(Anonymous)]

Great post, Jacinta. Just one note:

"Maybe Ts'o doesn't know that this kind of predatory behaviour is common, that 6% of men seem to be willing to admit to doing this kind of thing if you don't use the word "rape"."

You didn't cite the reference for this, which I thought was a shame as it's one of the most interesting articles I've read as a result of this kerfuffle. For those who haven't seen it, the reference is:

https://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/

Definitely an eye-opening read.

adamw

You, Sir, are a horrible human being

[(Anonymous)]

I read what Ted said and you misrepresent him completely.

Totally Unjustified Ad Hominem Attack

[(Anonymous)]

I have read Ted's posts. I have NOT read the entire thread - but I don't need to.

The fact of the matter is that he was accused by a participant of the thread of ignoring certain facts about female reaction to rape which allegedly was part of the problem of presentations made in a sexualized manner. He responded by citing statistics which either disprove or ameliorate the contentions made.

You can argue the statistics - if you HAVE an argument against them - but to turn his response into his being a "rape apologist" when his responses in that regard are QUITE CLEAR is just disgustingly intellectually dishonest. I assume Garrett has a personal agenda with Tso behind this attack, or Garrett has some other agenda in mind.

People frequently like to prove they are "morally superior" to other people, and I suspect this ad hominem attack falls into that category.

Beyond that, the notion that sexual material that might be used in a presentation anywhere has to be prohibited because certain women do not like it for whatever reason is in my view ridiculous. If you think the definition of rape is uncertain, try defining "offensive". The courts use the ridiculous and vague "community standards" definition. Any other is even less rationally justifiable.

As well-known comic Bill Hicks said: "Another thing. This idea of "I'm offended". Well I've got news for you. I'm offended by a lot of things too. Where do I send my list? Life is offensive. You know what I mean? Just get in touch with your outer adult. And grow up. And move on. Reasonable people don't write letters because... A: They have lives and B, they understand it's just TV. C: If they see something they don't like, something they do like might be on later. I've seen many comics I've hated. I've seen many shows that have offended me. I've never written a letter. I just go about my life."

Garrett, go on with your life...

Re: Totally Unjustified Ad Hominem Attack

[(Anonymous)]

"I have read Ted's posts. I have NOT read the entire thread - but I don't need to."

Yes, you really do. Ted's statements and opinions extend far beyond the realm of statistics. Read http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0038.html before commenting further.

What's the point of this post?

[(Anonymous)]

If you're not willing to remove his code, reject future patches from him, and remove any input from him on any mailing lists, essentially firing him, aren't you just grandstanding?

Yeah sure, the guy is a slime ball, but if all you are going to do is whine about him being a slime ball, then you really haven't accomplished anything with this post.

thank you Matt, Adam, and Jacinta

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you Matt, Adam, and Jacinta, and the other voices of sanity speaking valiantly in a thread full of cruelty and stupidity. The insurmountable hurdle, as always, is listening to women, and then conquering the even bigger hurdle of believing that we may actually know what we're talking about. It seems a lot of folks would rather surrender their humanity than cross those lines.

Carla Schroder, who has heard this same baloney for over 40 years. It doesn't smell any better with age.

Thanks for speaking out

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not a developer or anyone important, just a Linux-user who's alternately surprised and dismayed by how clueless some people are when it comes to issues around sexism & sexual assault in geek-y subcultures.

Thanks for standing up to this and not treating it like a "girl issue". For what it's worth I think you're doing the right thing here.

[(Anonymous)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

The numbers goes from 1% to 90%, hard to make it more meaningless.

So Ted was right pointing the fact that it is a poor use of statistics, extending this assertion to "Ted believes that many..." is nonsense and misinterpretation.

[mjg59]

Ted directly endorses an article claiming that the figure is probably close to 50%.

Nice

[(Anonymous)]

I'm late to the party but I just want say you are an idiot and I hope you hold to your promises.

Lies and SJW crap

[(Anonymous)]

This entire article is written by someone putting words into people's mouths. This is called a strawman. (intentionally misinterpreting someone's argument)
making the argument that there's reasonable doubt of that 46% of accusations ("46% of them had subsequent sex with the reported assailant". Ted disagrees with a statistic because some rape victims subsequently have sex with the reported assailant.) is not saying he doesn't believe them, he's saying there's reasonable doubt to these accusations based on following behavior. That doesn't mean he doesn't believe, that means, there's reasonable doubt.

As well apologist defined is "a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial.
'an enthusiastic apologist for fascism in the 1920s'"
An apologist defends the awful thing, he's not defending rape, he's defending accuracy in rape stats.