The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

As UVA Rape Story Falls Apart, Feminists Try to Save ‘Rape Culture’ Narrative

Posted on | December 12, 2014 | 72 Comments

Reporting by the Washington Post and ABC News is steadily ripping to shreds the gang-rape story “Jackie” told Rolling Stone‘s Sabrina Rubin Erdely. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has a good summary of how the story is unraveling. It seems clear that editors at Rolling Stone did not adequately vet the story and, as Eric Wemple says, “Erdely’s mission appears to have been to present as sensational and damaging an account of fraternity excesses as she could gather.”

Ah, but if the story is not true, this doesn’t mean that feminists are prepared to abandon their precious narrative about how college girls live under a regime of sexual terror caused by savage males who brutally impose their phallocratic supremacy on helpless victims. At Slate.com, Amanda Hess coins the phrase “rape truthers” to describe “social media misogynists” she uses in a straw-man argument:

There are people on the fringe who believe that any rape story with any discrepancies is evidence of a vast feminist conspiracy aimed at inventing rapes and vilifying innocent men, but these rape truthers are not reasonable people, nor are they most people, and it is unwise to mold the conversation around their fantasies. I am, however, concerned with how some feminists and progressives have responded to the ever-expanding holes in Rolling Stone’s story.
At this point, it is clear that Rolling Stone failed to meet its basic journalistic requirements many times over. There is also compelling evidence that Jackie herself fabricated all or parts of her story. Neither of these scenarios serves to dismantle the anti-rape movement. Journalists have messed up reporting on rape since they began reporting on rape. In addition, there have been false rape allegations in the past, and there will be false allegations in the future. Any successful anti-rape activist or movement must be willing to accept that false accusations are not a “myth” and grapple with how to handle them appropriately. Whatever really happened at UVA one Saturday night in 2012 cannot possibly undermine a social justice movement because any understanding of justice must accommodate the truth. . . .

You can read the rest, but notice what Hess has done here:

  1. Imputed irrational paranoia to those of us “people on the fringe” who see evidence of “a vast feminist conspiracy” in the interminable campaign against “rape culture” that has, among other things, imposed a weird “affirmative consent” law on California campuses. To say that feminists engage in propaganda campaigns, and that they do this in an organized manner with the assistance of politicians and journalists, is merely to state a fact. Feminist rhetoric routinely vilifies innocent men, as the whole point of the “rape culture” meme is to say that any word or deed that offends feminists — from caustic sarcasm to “the male gaze” — makes men complicit in rape. And, as far as this Rolling Stone UVA story is concerned, whether or not a rape was fictionalized out of whole cloth, feminists did manage to turn an egregious example of biased agenda-driven “reporting” into a hysteria that caused the university to shut down fraternity life on campus. Like the old joke says, it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
  2. Accepted as valid the need for an “anti-rape movement” organized around the concept of “social justice,” which is exactly how we get episodes like this UVA fraternity witch-hunt.

Could somebody ask Amanda Hess to identify the pro-rape forces in society which necessitates this kind of anti-rape movement?

Pardon me if I sound like a “rape truther” in asking such a question, but rape has been a crime under Anglo-American common law since time immemorial, and this crime is punishable by very long prison terms. All law-abiding citizens support rigorous enforcement of our nation’s laws against rape, and so the question of how “social justice” requires an “anti-rape movement” ought to be asked.

Nobody is denying that rape happens, nor is anyone denying that college girls are sometimes the victims of these crimes. The problem is that the prevalence of rape on campus has been deliberately exaggerated by feminist ideologues who claim 1-out-5 college females will be sexually assaulted during their undergraduate careers.

Critics have repeatedly exposed the problem with this bogus statistic, yet it keeps being repeated as gospel, while feminists denounce as “rape apologists” anyone who points out the actual facts.

In a report this week, the Justice Department made clear that rape is less common on college campuses than elsewhere in society.

According to the report, the actual number of rapes of college-age females is 6.1 per 1,000, a drastically smaller number than 1-in-5. Meanwhile, non-college-attending females in the same 18-to-24 age group had about a 20% higher rate of rape (7.6 per 1,000).

To put it quite bluntly, there is zero evidence to support feminist claims of a “rape epidemic” on U.S. college campuses.

To put it even more bluntly, feminists are lying about rape.

Whether these feminist lies are evidence of a conspiracy, or merely a common habit among feminists, I’ll leave for my fellow misogynistic “rape truthers” to debate amongst themselves if they’re not too busy. Oppressing women is a full-time job, y’know.




 

 

Category: Crime, Education, Feminism, Journalism, Media Bias, Sex Trouble

Comments

72 Responses to “As UVA Rape Story Falls Apart, Feminists Try to Save ‘Rape Culture’ Narrative”

  1. RKae
    December 12th, 2014 @ 11:11 pm

    There was only one part of Jackie’s story that I found believable: the bit where she got off the plane in Bosnia and sniper bullets were whizzing over her head.

    Other than that, it was pure nonsense.

  2. kilo6
    December 12th, 2014 @ 11:35 pm

    Yeah the whole thing about the bottle breaking on her head smelled of BS to me

    … One flung a bottle at Jackie that broke on the side of her face, leaving a blood-red bruise around her eye. …

    see: Grievous Bottle-y Harm at TV Tropes

    Plus my personal experience of being hit in the head by a “air-mailed” empty bottle of Soju (while in S. Korea), and no this was not a “return receipt” bottle. The Soju bottle was small but it f**king hurt, and the ridiculousness of bottle-breaking in TV bar brawl scenes was forever impressed(!) on my memory.

    Want some more painful stupidity?

    Watch this example of bottle-y harm

    https://youtu.be/fpVjlg7Nq-Y

  3. Isaac T. Quill
    December 12th, 2014 @ 11:36 pm

    http://t.co/X2nLuoMXrS

  4. BUT REMEMBER, IF YOU HAD ANY DOUBTS YOU’RE A “RAPE DENIALIST” OR SOMETHING: ABC: Witnesses ignored … | CRAGIN MEDIA
    December 12th, 2014 @ 11:51 pm

    […] As UVA Rape Story Falls Apart; Feminists Try to Save ‘Rape Culture’ Narrative. “Rape culture” is real. Just in places like ISIS’ Iraq or Boko Haram’s Nigeria, not […]

  5. Adjoran
    December 12th, 2014 @ 11:57 pm

    You have to get the right kind of bottles – I think they are made of sugar. And remember not to put any liquid in them, they’ll dissolve!

  6. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 12th, 2014 @ 11:59 pm

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gog1TepxuHA/VIkK2MT0vnI/AAAAAAAAo_I/AMNjebotNkA/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-12-10%2Bat%2B7.08.38%2BPM.png

  7. Daniel Freeman
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:08 am

    I like the theory that I read that all of the “shattered glass” in the story was Ederly’s reference (conscious or not) to her ex-coworker Stephen.

  8. Adjoran
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:09 am

    Hess at least acknowledged it is perfectly legitimate to check the facts on a rape accusation, which most of the other left-feminists don’t seem to rate as reasonable.

    In the meantime, yet another false story by Ederly was retracted by her college paper for being wholly fabricated. Her editor was Stephen Glass! “Too fictional for Stephen Glass” is a category all its own. Then, her first rape story in Rolling Stone was retracted when her main source, the alleged victim, recanted. Erdely’s second rape story was about a female soldier allegedly raped in Iraq, which also raised immediate questions and may not be completely accurate. This is her third rape story for RS, and she was working on a screenplay about Jackie’s experiences to sell to producers before it even hit the stands.

    Anyone else notice a pattern here?

    Jackie is one twisted chick, and a liar or nut case. But Erdely is a serial liar, especially looking for a juicy rape case. The editors knew all this, still didn’t check her story. And lied when they said they contacted the accused .

    A fraud from start to finish. Don’t blame Jackie.

  9. joethefatman
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:11 am

    I can vouch for bottles no being that easy to break. A glass 32oz coke bottle thrown from a car caused me to do a flip when it impacted my head. It didn’t break, but I got a week in the hospital.

  10. Fail Burton
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:13 am

    The “evidence of a vast feminist conspiracy aimed at inventing rapes and vilifying innocent men” exists in their actual quotes. I don’t have to make anything up.

    “Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists and that’s all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, their codes.” – Marilyn French, The Women’s Room, 1977

    “It (rape) is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear… Rather than society’s aberrants or ‘spoilers of purity,’ men who commit rape have served in effect as front-line masculine shock troops, terrorist guerrillas in the longest sustained battle the world has ever known….when men raise the spectre of the unknown rapist, they refuse to take psychologic responsibility for the nature of his act.” – Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will, 1975

    And there’s an “anti-rape movement”? I thought we as a country collectively not only had laws against rape but that conservatives were boobs for wanting to hang them. Now we are neutral about rape? As far as I can tell, in real world terms, “anti-rape activist” means no due process. And do these morons not understand their own term “rape culture”?

  11. joethefatman
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:13 am

    “and a liar or nut case”

    OR?

  12. Fail Burton
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:18 am

    And don’t forget being thrown out of a window onto the exploding bomb and bouncing under a sandwich truck I mentioned. I made that up cuz I am anti-rape and I’ll do what I can to get a conviction against a random man even if I have to mention Jackie had her arms chopped off and a monkey’s put in their place. That would nicely account for her subsequent depression. Yeah, monkey-arms.

  13. RKae
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:21 am

    I’m sorry you had to go through that!

    I know how you feel!

    I once had to fight a dozen Nazis on a moving truck in order to rescue the Ark of the Covenant.

  14. RKae
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:26 am

    I thought that too with the line “anti-rape movement.” Is there also an anti-robbery movement, ’cause that’s sort of a problem, too.

    And if all men are rapists, then all women are false accusers. I mean, if we’re all to be tagged with the crimes that a few commit…

    ANNNND, while I’m at it, if all men are rapists, does that include gay men? Doesn’t the left get upset if anyone suggests that little boys are in danger around gay men?

  15. K-Bob
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:26 am

    A bunch of feminist cranks hardly rises to the level of “vast”. However the “conspiracy” part is obvious: editors need that all-important click bait, so they conspire on their own to keep the shrill, #WarOnWomen idiots on page 1.

    #RealContentIsHard

  16. Adjoran
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:29 am

    and/or

    Could be all one or the other.

  17. Adjoran
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:30 am

    Maybe. He caught her faking another ‘news’ story.

  18. Terenc Blakely
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:41 am

    Feminist’s claim that all men are rapists is as accurate as rapper’s claim that all women are whores and just about as useful.

  19. Daniel Freeman
    December 13th, 2014 @ 1:36 am

    I was confused at first when people said that she “catfished” herself to impress a guy, then looked up the definition, and yeah. That’s what it looks like.

  20. concern00
    December 13th, 2014 @ 2:22 am

    Rape has been redefined as anything a feminist wants it to be. Look at her the wrong way – rape. Clumsily attempt a first kiss – rape. Fail to ask permission for each and every thrust – rape. Turn her down for sex – rape. Not be a star performer in bed – rape. Fail to acknowledge her the next day – rape.

    I feel sorry for the real victims of rape. As with everything the left touches, the real victims are sacrificed on the altar of the ’cause.’

  21. Scratcheee
    December 13th, 2014 @ 3:50 am

    I’m wondering if all movies made to date will have to be reviewed for a ratings update, what with all the rape scenes where affirmative consent was not obtained. We can start with “When Harry Raped Sally.”

  22. Phil_McG
    December 13th, 2014 @ 5:03 am

    Rapeless in Seattle
    You’ve Got Rape
    The Rape Around The Corner
    Rape Encounter
    A Rape To Remember
    Rapio + Juliet
    An Officer And A Rapist
    Rapey Dancing

  23. Phil_McG
    December 13th, 2014 @ 5:05 am

    All men are rapists, but mainly wealthy white Christian men, and any statistics that show otherwise just prove the heteronormative white patriarchal rapespiracy.

  24. Phil_McG
    December 13th, 2014 @ 5:21 am

    Check out her previous stories.

    One of them – that she won awards for – suggested Michelle Bachmann and likeminded “Christian conservatives” were behind a wave of gay teen suicides, somehow.

    Another was an astonishing tale of Catholic priest rape that seems it may have led to an innocent man dying in prison recently.

    Others are full of the amazing adventures of transsexuals.

    In every case, she relies heavily on anonymous – but highly eloquent and attention-grabbing – quotes. There are never any grey areas, no confusion or doubt in the narratives she presents.

    They are tales of pure innocence and righteousness (rape victims, trannies, gay teens) versus absolute evil and corruption (conservatives, white blond Southern fraternity boys, Catholic priests, bikers).

    That alone should’ve set her editor’s alarm bells off. How many real-life stories are that melodramatic, really? How many anonymous sources so perfectly deliver lines that make your story “pop”?

    But she was going after the sort of people her editors were already predisposed to believe anything about – so long as it was bad.

  25. Fail Burton
    December 13th, 2014 @ 5:30 am

    I hereby declare I am anti-robbery. Pro-robbery Americans, I am your implacable enemy henceforth. There is no place for you in my new anti-robbery America.

  26. Fail Burton
    December 13th, 2014 @ 5:32 am

    I saw that on The World at War when I was a child.

  27. Fail Burton
    December 13th, 2014 @ 5:48 am

    The Best Rapes of Our Lives
    Jane Rape
    Pride and Rape
    A Tale of Two Rapes
    The Bad News Pedophile Rapists
    To Rape and To Rape Not
    Yankee Doodle Rapist
    I’m Raping in the Rain
    From Russia With Rape

  28. alanhenderson
    December 13th, 2014 @ 7:18 am

    The truth has raped the rape culture narrative.

  29. alanhenderson
    December 13th, 2014 @ 7:23 am

    On another note…is Jackie Coakley related to Martha Coakley?

  30. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 13th, 2014 @ 7:57 am

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SlRESoiE9GI/VIwmW5XhRyI/AAAAAAAApDU/NHRTHTnPU0U/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-12-13%2Bat%2B3.42.08%2BAM.png

  31. Jim R
    December 13th, 2014 @ 8:40 am

    BINGO!

  32. Tatterdemalian Threadbare
    December 13th, 2014 @ 9:32 am

    It would be less dangerous if it were a conspiracy. Conspiracies fall apart when exposed to the light. “Rape Culture” Feminism is something much worse: it’s a fanatical religious mob mentality that doesn’t care if it’s wrong about everything, and, given time and numbers, will destroy anything it considers an enemy without pity or mercy. Such movements cannot be defeated by being reasoned with or shown the errors of their ways, as they don’t need rational thought to survive or actual grievance to launch deadly attacks.

  33. Isaac T. Quill
    December 13th, 2014 @ 9:40 am

    And do these morons not understand their own term “rape culture”?

    Amusingly, NO They Don’t!

    Most don’t even know its origin, claiming it’s an invention of Susan Brownmiller’s. There has been a great deal of Confabulation by some to cover up both ignorance and the truth… And they hate this Academic Reference:

    Rape culture is a concept of unknown origin and of uncertain definition; yet it has made its way into everyday vocabulary and is assumed to be commonly understood. The award-winning documentary film Rape Culture made by Margaret Lazarus in 1975 takes credit for first defining the concept.

    Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Sociology (2007), Page 3791 – eBook version @ http://goo.gl/9sEkWi

    The number of times I have been told that the author was evidently a ignorant white male misogynist is funny, especially when the author is The Black African American, Prof Joyce E. Williams (Emeritus), head of the department of sociology and social work of Texas Woman’s University – member of the Editorial Board, The Association of Black Sociologists.

    They really hate this little gem too – the first reference to Rape Culture in the US Congressional Record is due to a Black African American Male featured in that Film – Mr William Fuller (Founder of PAR- Prisoners Against Rape Inc)- placing evidence before congress 1978, whilst still in prison.

    http://i.imgur.com/XJRPtob.jpg

    See – Research into violent behavior: overview and sexual assaults : hearings before the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Scientific Planning, Analysis, and Cooperation of the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-fifth Congress, second session, January 10, 11, 12, 1978. page 676

    http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015081118591;view=1up;seq=680

    Why is it that “Rape Culture”, such an apparently important and relevant sociological term, has been ignored for nearly 40 years – is not correctly reference by Academics (Especially feminist Academics) – and why is it that in the 1975 Film only white women feature when it was three Black African American Women (Loretta Ross, Yulanda Ward and Nkenge Toure) who did all the heavy lifting with “Prisoners Against Rape” have been whitewashed out of history along with the male prisoners?

    There is no posability that White Radical Feminism in the USA is in anyway Racists and Wilfully Ignorant…. is there?

    See

    http://i.imgur.com/qfTI0eH.png

    Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, MA, LORETTA ROSS Interviewed by JOYCE FOLLET, TAPE 8 of 23, Ross F 7_10 9 05, Page 122 of 360 – http://www.webcitation.org/6OVd0brxH

    And for the most part, people respected the rules and the guidelines. Now where it got complicated was when some of the white women started going to the prison, and then they were the ones that started breaking the rules about smuggling things to the guys and stuff. Harmless stuff. Tennis shoes or whatever stuff like that, but William had to kick a couple of guys out of the group because they had started relationships with women who had come down there through the Rape Crisis Center. Unfortunately, they were all white, the women were. And,so that was hard to manage and just — how come she was a lesbian until she met him? (laughs) you know, kind of cynical stuff was happening. But I did enjoy dealing with Prisoners Against Rape.

    ….. Well, the staff was predominantly black. Doreen, Michelle, Nkenge, and my tenures — we always had one or two white women on staff, but it was majority black, and so our tensions, our racial tensions were around leadership coming from an unexpected quarter….Well, I’ll just speak for myself. Here’s a black woman with basically a high school diploma hiring a white woman with a Master’s in Social Work and supervising her to run our counseling program….I mean, Michelle, Nkenge and I and so, yet we had to hire women with Ph.D.s or MSWs to work for us, and so there was always a challenge around leadership and professionalism. At least as I experienced it and I’m sure that Nkenge had some of that.

  34. RS
    December 13th, 2014 @ 10:05 am

    Given the Higher Education Bubble and increasing numbers of parents and students who see the high cost of a college education as a suspect investment, one would think that colleges would be rebelling against anything which might give parents pause about sending their children to campus for four years: Parents of boys who fear their sons will be devoured by the maw of radical feminists and parents of girls who believe they’re sending their daughters off to a rape factory.

    (As I mentioned in a comment at a different site, my son’ college chief of police was quite proud to announce to freshmen parents that the worst crime on campus (which includes fraternities, BTW) in the last four years was a stolen laptop.)

  35. Scratcheee
    December 13th, 2014 @ 10:31 am

    I could make a hobby out of this.

    Star Rapes
    9 1/2 Rapes
    The Rape Club
    St. Elmo’s Rape
    The Rape Lagoon
    From Rape to Eternity
    The Seven Year Rape

  36. Scratcheee
    December 13th, 2014 @ 10:33 am

    The truth has been raped by the rape culture narrative.

    Then again, whoever accuses first wins, so I guess the truth has no claim.

  37. Pat_Loudoun
    December 13th, 2014 @ 10:45 am

    For over 30 years I’ve been hearing “We need to let WOMYN run the World! Men are too (x or y or z)”. Turns out womyn can get a little nuts every now and again. Who knew?

    Comments, ladies?

  38. Quartermaster
    December 13th, 2014 @ 11:14 am

    They are nuts, so they don’t have to get anything.

  39. Jeanette Victoria
    December 13th, 2014 @ 11:26 am

    Ah proegssives “Fake but true” “dirt true or not” is their rallying cry

  40. Jeanette Victoria
    December 13th, 2014 @ 11:28 am

    Yup the so called teen suicide epidemic was one big fat lie that REAL stats never supported the assertion. But what the hell facts are so annoying when on can feel the REAL truth.

  41. Jeanette Victoria
    December 13th, 2014 @ 11:30 am

    They aren’t a little nuts they are REALLY nuts

  42. boyd2
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:12 pm

    “Could somebody ask Amanda Hess to identify the pro-rape forces in society which necessitates this kind of anti-rape movement?”

    It must be those throngs of beer-swilling frat boys chanting, “What do we want! RAPE! When do we want it! NOW!” in solidarity with the roving rape gangs prosecuting that War on Women we’ve all heard so much about. Or something.

  43. JeffS
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:15 pm

    Hollywood stunts almost never happen in real life. They’re entertaining as hell, but not real.

  44. Fail Burton
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:16 pm

    What I find fascinating about this con game is how these women maintain faceless men in their millions literally hate women. But it’s pretty clear if you use their own thin standards, women like Amanda Marcotte and Jessica Valenti hate men. Even more remarkable is how those two laugh off the idea of them acting out of such malice as breezily as they maintain it’s credible men do. It’s like saying gravity works in their house but not mine.

    That’s almost by definition a sign of denial, delusion and psychotic behavior. Do they not understand what their own careers are devoted to? It’s pretty obvious they have the same thing in common with the ’60s gender feminists who started all this: the ability to meticulously build credible worlds to justify their bizarre phobia of men.

    Part of the great con is it’s true men assault people and do other crimes more than women. But men also do almost all of the good societal stuff too, which includes guaranteeing their freedom. You can’t just shave off the good and leave the bad, but these morons actually buy into that. The other con within a con is these feminists never apply this preponderance theory to black crime and so moan about Ferguson in the exact opposite manner they do about rape culture.

    Feminists are such transparent liars it’s difficult to keep track of, but at the end of the day it’s a bizarre hierarchy of right and wrong determined by race and gender only they can sort out, and they use it as a moral ethos, like a race-gender ethos, or a Bible.

    Last on the list is using actual right and wrong to determine such things. This is how hate speech is mainstreamed to a gullible public, and I imagine much the same mechanism that occurred in Nazi Germany and Rwanda.

  45. JeffS
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:18 pm

    What, no sammiches??!??!!?

  46. JeffS
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:21 pm

    “…..but rape has been a crime under Anglo-American common law since time
    immemorial, and this crime is punishable by very long prison terms.    ”

    I recall times/places/cultures where rape was punishable by death. Or castration. Alas, those days are long gone.

  47. Fail Burton
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:23 pm

    Many years ago a friend and I were backpacking around Bali and we were in what’s called a “bemo,” a public taxi/bus, which is a tarp-covered pickup truck with benches on either side. The drivers were really irritating and always stopping and saying “Bemo, Mister?” even when you were walking in the opposite direction on a one-way street. Tourist shops even had “Bemo, Mister?” t-shirts.

    So on this long ride between towns we started playing this same movie title game but with the word “bemo.” After about 15 minutes of this the really irritated driver who barely understood English shouted “Bemo, bemo, everything bemo!”

  48. Quartermaster
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:52 pm

    YOU want a nut fixing you sammiches? How do you know what’s in that sammich?

  49. JaySwan
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:54 pm

    On a different note, while out walking in NYC last night, and this was not in a bad neighborhood, I did witness real street harassment last night as a group of black males kept yelling “I eat ass” at two young white women who were walking by. It was disgusting and horrible, and made me want to go full Charlie Bronson, or Batman on these creeps. Point being though, up until then I always found claims about street harassment either trivial, or exaggerated, but not so when you actually see it in real time. It makes me wonder if rape claims are really that exaggerated, especially when dealing with the kind of guys you often find in frats?

  50. JaySwan
    December 13th, 2014 @ 12:56 pm

    *last night should have only been used once.