James Landrith is...Taking The Gloves Off: syndicated

left-libertarian blogger, publisher, Marine and civil liberties activist

 

Hillary Crosley, writing for Parlour, on Pennsylvania's 'Prove Your Rape' Bill Proposed:

I maintain that all of these vagina-policing laws wouldn’t be an issue if the topic of conversation was male rape, which also happens and few people want to discuss. *throws up hands*

Of course none of that would be an issue because even many female rape survivors and quite a few women in general arrogantly believe that men can't be raped, that erections = consent and that if we couldn't fight them off then we secretly wanted it. We are apparently all supermen and lack the ability to provide meaningful consent, given that we all want sex all the time. Period.

When will people stop assuming that male survivors are treated better than female survivors? Every time someone says something stupid about female survivors or a politician uses their position to attack women, this ridiculous assertion that male survivors wouldn't be treated this way is bandied about as some sort of ultimate wisdom.

No, we are not treated to discussions that our genitalia should be regulated. We are told that we will all become predators - often by those charged with helping us recover from our traumas. We are outright told by men AND women that we can't be raped, laughed at and outright mocked - often by people who should be our natural allies.

Being told that you will become the very thing that hurt you, denied access to survivor services, mocked for even mentioning what happened and told it isn't even a real crime is oh, so much better.

When I was raped 18 years ago, it wasn't even a crime as men were not even included in the statutes where it happened. But yeah, it wouldn't be an issue.

Please, can we stop with the false equivalency already? Is that asking too much?

Scalzi, Rothfuss, and Whedon are—right now—wealthy(ish) white men writing about problems only women face. They are exhibiting the male control they castigate by fighting our fight. I’m not ungrateful, but I’m frustrated that the strongest plays in the feminist fight are coming from men… and even these men don’t seem interested in what women have to say.

They’re taking away our right to fight the good fight.

When women write these posts, they’re quietly applauded, loudly criticized, or just ignored as regurgitating feminist vitriol. So when men like Scalzi step up to the plate, we praise them high and low, and the merits of their argument ring across the internet.

All because they have the lucky position of being a privileged white man writing on behalf of women.

Bullshit.  They are not taking away anyone's right to fight the good fight.  They are opposing an injustice that pisses them off personally.  In some cases, such men may have loved ones who have experienced sexual violence or be survivors themselves.  I'd say that affects them as well.  The fact that they have a gigantic bully pulpit is not the same thing as suppression of another's efforts.  I can empathize with the desire for women's voices to be stronger, but there is a gigantic world of difference between the two concepts.  Claiming one causes the other is an utter logic fail.  There is room for more than one voice on this planet.

Alyssa Rosenberg on John Scalzi And What Men Talk About When They Talk About Rape:

I would be delighted to live in a world where men trusted women and didn’t treat our concerns like second-order needs, and we didn’t need prominent male allies to validate that sexual assault, abortion access, and privacy are important issues. But as long as we do, I’d rather have Scalzi and company in the conversation than not. And I’d note that while pregnancy as a result of rape may be a terrible event particular to cis women, I don’t think that rape is an issue that only women face. Men are sexual assault victims, too, and the taboo around discussing those assaults is in some ways even mo