Maybe People Should Not Look Up To YouTube Atheist

[TaraJo]

There is a cultural bs that boys only turn into men if they are 'players', fuck many women, that needs to be adressed first. Notice that I do not condemn men that like to seduce, flirt with women and have many consenting partners (women can do that too), its the cultural pressure put into men since young ages that they have to validate their sexuality by objectifying women.

This cultural factor is also one that leads to several cases of rape, despite those rapists knowing they are hurting their victims. They are educated, but they do it anyway.

Just my 2 cents.

Another level of that cultural teaching is that men are taught to ignore feelings. Real men don't have feelings! Men get looked down on for crying or for showing compassion or sympathy. If a man is hurt, he gets told to "man up" and ignore it. If men are taught so much to ignore feelings, even their own, how are we supposed to expect them to have any empathy for the feelings of others?

[Tonus]

What is YOUR plan to prevent rape?

I think we are slowly moving in the right direction in the USA, where there seems to be a growing effort at shielding victims from being further victimized if they report sexual assault. There is a long way to go, but there seems to be the dawning of an understanding that helping women understand that they are not to blame is critical in getting more of them to report such incidents and help law enforcement deal with rapists. There is also an effort to broaden the category of rape to cover scenarios that were not considered rape in the past (marital rape, for example).

I think it's important to advise women to avoid circumstances that can lead to rape, while still making it clear that the fault for any rape is 100% on the attacker. So yes, a woman should be aware of a number of factors that can increase the risk that she will become a victim and consider ways to reduce that risk. And if she is raped, she should feel confident that the blame will be placed fully on her attacker's shoulders and not hers. We still need to work on that last one, but I think we're making some progress, albeit too slowly.

[Psykhronic]

Tonus - you are right, things are shifting.There have been some recent outrages towards notorious rape cases (stubenville for example) that are reassuring. I think it's also important that we start taking rape that occurs to men and among gays, lesbians, other-gendered folks, everyone, seriously as well.

Wolf - I found some research on (sadly) specifically male rapists and female victims, this study is long as hell but includes information on how rapists perceived their situation. I skimmed over it, a snippet includes that rapists understate the force they use and paint the woman as an aggressor. I am sure it is far from a flawless study, but it is interesting. I have to run off for now, I'll check up on this thread later.

[Bad Wolf]

Yea I skimmed it too and it sounds like they paint the woman as an aggressor as a justification for raping her because they realise what they did was wrong.

[Psykhronic]

Yeah, at least a part of them somewhere may know it is wrong judging from that.

[The Valkyrie]

I have problems with the whole concept of celebrity in general. And believe me, when it comes to the concept of internet celebrity, I am down right disappointed in our internet humanity. No one should be an internet celebrity anymore than Paris Hilton and her ilk should be celebrities IRL.

But, many of us who are not believers in the ultimate fictional celebrity tend to quote, get information from and adopt the mindsets of many who we perceive as like-minded on the internet.

One particular individual who comes to mind is a neck-bearded misogynist who calls himself The Amazing Atheist, in one thread I created on misogyny, certain individuals cited him as if he were some sort of person that I maybe should pay heed to. But if you knew the history of TJ and for that matter Thunderf00t, I highly doubt that anyone would ever tempt to do that again.

The Amazing Atheist, if you check out his YouTube channel seems to have put discussing atheism on the backburner and has been taking more time ranting about the evils of women. And I find it disgusting.

His rants on how women and particularly feminist women are evil are no more legitimate than any given racist ranting about about Asians, African Americans or Hispanics on YouTube.

Yet some of us seem to think that it is a-ok to recommend or promote this guy. so I am going to ask you Amazing Atheist fans a question: Would you promote or recommend a racist if you felt that that racist was a like minded atheist?

I stopped listening to the amazing atheist nearly two years ago. He struck me as nothing more than a seriously disturbed individual with a persecution complex.

The same happened with Thunderfoot.

I honestly wouldn't say I look up to anyone on the internet. I enjoy listening to some of their perspectives and, in the case of the Atheist Experience, slapping down the low-brows they have call up.

[NoraBrimstone]

I only watched a few mins of the video, so I don't know how it ends. But anyway, I had a lot of issues with it. Some of my issues about that video, and some victim blaming arguments and stuff are as follows.

1) Comparing rape to burglary and mugging. The problem there is that rape isn't theft. It's a physical assault against another person. A better comparison is when Islamaphobes attack women in the street who are wearing a hijab, or attack a man in a turban because they think he's a Muslim. But does anyone say "Well she/he shouldn't have been wearing that!"? Well, yes, probably... But it wouldn't be as acceptable as blaming a woman gor getting raped seems to be.
This feels like it comes from the idea that women are sex objects, and sex is a commodity, so raping us is stealing. I don't like it.

2) Say we could legitimately compare it to burglary. If you have a nice house abd leave your door unlocked or open a window and your house gets robbed; if it goes to court, would you be put on the yourself and questioned about having a nice house and how often you open your doors and windows? Or read a list of times you've willing given away items and money as gifts or for charity, only to have the defense use that information against you and cause the jury to declare the burglar is not guilty, because you left your door open and have a history of giving away gifts? Would your friends and family say "Well, you shouldn't have a nice house if you don't want to get robbed!"

3) It's great that these days (unlike 10 years ago, when I was at school) schools are teaching boys not to rape in the same way that they are taught not to steal. That should definitely be happening more. However, I don't think it helps that girls are equally being told not to get raped. What is that doing to a teenage girl's self esteem? We're actively telling little girls that if they get raped it's partly their fault.
And what is that telling teenage boys? That it's fine to rape someone if they're dressed a certain way, because they can stand up in court and tell them she deserved it and almost certainly get away with it? Hell, with that defense, it probably won't even get as far as court. The police wouldn't even persue the case, they'll just tell the victim there's nothing they can do about it, and that even if it did, they would be the one on trial, not their attacker. That's the reality in Britain, where fewer than 1 in 30 rapes lead to a conviction.

[TheBeardedDude]

I don't like the Amazing Atheist, but it is primarily because 1) I am just not into his style of presentation and 2) I have become less interested in people who are clearly trying to be famous for the sake of it. Some people have something valuable to contribute to the discussion (tAA has at times had some good stuff to add), but in the realm of the atheist who is famous for being an atheist, they typically repeat themselves like a broken record. For instance, Hitch or Dawkins are great reads and fun to watch in debates, because they have other credentials to add to the discussion.

[Bad Wolf]

Nora seriously, you completely missed the point. You say you only watched a few minutes of the video? Watch the whole damn thing before writing it off, its 18 minutes long!

[NoraBrimstone]

No thanks. I saw enough.