The Other McCain

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

‘Jeopardy’ Is Rape Culture?

Posted on | February 16, 2016 | 60 Comments

During the #GamerGate controversy, feminists used the accusation of online “harassment” as proof that the videogame industry was a bastion of misogyny. Yet what, if anything, did this prove?

Go back and study the case of the perverted Reddit troll Violentacrez. The illusion of anonymity in the online world tends to enable antisocial behavior. There are now three billion people with Internet access, and even if only a single-digit percentage of those people are creeps and freaks, that still translates to many millions of abusive weirdos online. You cannot use Violentacrez to claim everybody on Reddit is a pervert, nor can you use examples of “harassment” to claim that every videogamer is a misogynist. If any categorical group of people (e.g., public school teachers) is large enough, it is easy to find examples of bad behavior (e.g., molestation of students) within the group, without implicating the entire group in this bad behavior.

Well, what about the audience of the TV quiz show Jeopardy? It’s one of the five most popular shows in syndication, and guess what? Some of its viewers are creeps and freaks. Former contestant Talia Lavin explains:

When Tiombi Prince competed on Jeopardy! in December 2015, she was fulfilling a childhood dream.
But after the show aired, she was inundated with sexual comments. Men sent messages congratulating her on her two-day win—and told her how much they liked her lips. White men, she said, told her how much they liked black women. One man was so persistent—sending her his email address, his “stats”—that it reminded her of an experience she’d had of being stalked after a single, disastrous blind date.
Elizabeth Williams, who received her own share of Internet fame after referencing Cheers in her Final Jeopardy answer, told me her personal Facebook page had been posted in the comments section of a blog post about her entitled “This Chick On Jeopardy Is Batshit Crazy And It’s A Huge Turn On.” She was bombarded with hundreds of friend requests from men.
“I’ve never been the least bit prudish, but I definitely felt creeped out by all of their comments,” Lynsey McMullen, who appeared on the quiz show in December, told me. (On Twitter, users told Lynsey she was “giving the buzzer a handjob” and that she looked “like someone you’d see in a MILF porn.”) “There was also a part of me that made me feel like I had brought this attention upon myself,” she said.
Appearing on America’s favorite quiz show—the show so staid and reliable that John Oliver quipped at last year’s Emmys that it might just be the most permanent fixture on earth—can make female contestants feel that they are running a sexualized gauntlet of unwelcome tweets, emails, and Facebook messages replete with explicit sexual material. I know, because I was one of them.
When I taped the show in August, I knew I’d bombed and tried to salvage it with a joke. I wasn’t prepared for that joke . . . to go viral when the show aired in September. Twitter chatter during the game led to an article on Uproxx, then more and more elsewhere, and a YouTube video whose views ballooned into the millions in the following days. The experience of going viral is brief but intense. It had the peculiar urgency of a dream—especially when I started reading the comments.
Scrolling through the thousand or so comments on the (since-deleted) YouTube video, I felt my skin start to crawl. My joke on a quiz show had somehow devolved into a group discussion of my breasts. . . .

You can read the whole thing. My point is that, while most viewers of Jeopardy are not creeps and freaks, any popular TV show will have a large enough audience that there will be some creeps and freaks among them. Provided access to an online forum where they can “talk back” to the women on the show, the creeps and freaks will say creepy, freaky stuff. However, this proves nothing in particular about the Jeopardy audience, nor does it prove anything about men in general.

Consider the phenomenon of “catcalling.” Some men engage in this boorish behavior, but most men don’t. Why, then, do feminists try to use catcalling to indict all men as complicit in “misogyny,” “objectification,” etc.? It should be obvious that the kind of guys who catcall women are not reading feminist blogs. Most catcallers seem to be barely literate, and many of them apparently don’t even speak English, so what purpose is served by the endless complaints from feminist bloggers about catcalling? Is it just about claiming victimhood?

Go to The Political Hat and read the quote from a feminist Tumblr blogger who claims that “the gaze of patriarchy” is a “constant source of stress” that inflicts brain damage on women.

 

Comments

60 Responses to “‘Jeopardy’ Is Rape Culture?”

  1. DeadMessenger
    February 16th, 2016 @ 11:33 pm

    Good point. Only an imbecile would tar an entire class of people with the same brush. And if feminists are the set of creeps and freaks among women, then how do we account for their believers, followers and enablers? Are they crossovers from another subset of creeps and freaks?

  2. Adobe_Walls
    February 17th, 2016 @ 12:15 am

    I read the ”Political Hat” piece. While I don’t doubt the feminist blogger’s assertion because ya know ”science” I don’t think the Patriarchy (blessed be it’s name) is actually able to make use of this ”power”, pity.

  3. concern00
    February 17th, 2016 @ 12:28 am

    I suspect said women of having brain damage prior to the petrifying gaze of the hated patriarchy being turned in their direction.

  4. DeadMessenger
    February 17th, 2016 @ 12:33 am

    There’s a Power that the Patriarchy (bbin) lacks? O_O

  5. Fail Burton
    February 17th, 2016 @ 5:21 am

    Odd how feminists have not noticed their own serial sexual harassment of men, feminists who are not only not anonymous but whose inflammatory comments are rewarded with lectures, bylines and their advice sought out by Twitter and the U.N. Whether you find people like Randi Harper, Arthur Chu or Brianna Wu and their obsessive focus on straight white men creepy is not simply a matter of perspective but of mangling, gerrymandering and torturing the word “creepy” Third Wave Feminist-style. I could create a haunted house using those 3 alone.

  6. Fail Burton
    February 17th, 2016 @ 5:25 am

    Feminists, being astute observers of human nature, have rightly come to the conclusion that such a thing as immorality and even crime exists. It only remains for them to advance beyond the age of antiquity and figure out they are in theory and principle arguing it is possible for all women to be immoral criminals. Fortunately men have created a Constitution. There is no irony in Mudville, or in this case, even a strike zone. Anything can be anything with a feminist set of “rules.”

  7. goddessoftheclassroom
    February 17th, 2016 @ 6:26 am

    Women victims of the male gaze online, you have extraordinary power at the end of your fingertips.
    It’s your computer’s mouse.
    With it you can delete, ignore, and even block unwanted attention. You can reset privacy settings to keep your social media persona among those you actually know.
    Feel the power.

  8. Dana
    February 17th, 2016 @ 6:40 am

    Networks and television stations hire almost exclusively good-looking people, and Fox News and CNN and even the Weather Channel have their female anchors on camera in short skirts and f(ornicate) me heels; those networks are using sex appeal to generate higher ratings, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that a few people out there take the not-so-subtle sex appeals as something real to them.

    Of course, the anchor babes know the deal: they are hired for their looks and told what to wear, and with that comes the understanding that there might will be some creeps out there who will fixate on them. Stephanie Abrams gets paid good money to weather the abuse. (Pun most definitely intended!)

    The quiz show contestants? They aren’t professionals, and perhaps they don’t expect this, but it’s going to happen as well.

  9. Barbaracwilliams3
    February 17th, 2016 @ 7:20 am

    ?my .friend’s mate Is getting 98$. HOURLY. on the internet.?….two days ago new McLaren. F1 bought after earning 18,512$,,,this was my previous month’s paycheck ,and-a little over, 17k$ Last month ..3-5 h/r of work a days ..with extra open doors & weekly. paychecks.. it’s realy the easiest work I have ever Do.. I Joined This 7 months ago and now making over 87$, p/h.Learn. More right Here!b1129????? http://GlobalSuperEmploymentVacanciesReportsTower/98$hourly…. .?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:::::!b1129…….

  10. gunga
    February 17th, 2016 @ 8:16 am

    The patriarchy made you post that!

  11. Ilion
    February 17th, 2016 @ 8:33 am

    As best I can tell, the Patriarchy (bbin) lacks the power to make me rich. Or, maybe it just lack the desire.

  12. Ilion
    February 17th, 2016 @ 8:35 am

    On the other hand, it is the Patriarchy (bbin) which gives them that power.

  13. RS
    February 17th, 2016 @ 9:03 am

    The problem is, we are being forced to come to grips with an ever expanding definition of what “public” means. Certainly, voluntarily appearing on a television game show opens one up to general scrutiny for better or worse. The real issue is that seemingly innocuous human interactions can now be intercepted by strangers and published to the wider world by total strangers. Modern technology and social media platforms have eroded the concept of privacy to the point where it is virtually (no pun intended) nonexistent. Yet, we still see people bemoaning having their own words, posted on public forums, quoted and analyzed.

  14. Fail Burton
    February 17th, 2016 @ 9:35 am

    My friend’s mate served on a China clipper which was invaded and overcome by a crew of ghost pirates from a ghost ship. Only that mate survived. True story.

  15. Fail Burton
    February 17th, 2016 @ 10:55 am

    Let’s be intellectually honest about what these fools have sold. Germaine Greer debates William Buckley at Cambridge in 1973, in the process, talking about men the way neo-Nazis talk about Jews. There are no pre-conditions about naughty words about men or safe-spaces.

    Fast forward to Cardiff U in 2015. Greer is nearly banned from speaking and does so under police protection. Had Cardiff been completely under feminist control she surely would’ve been banned. These are the monsters Greer created in 1973. Despite her confident bluster, the society Greer envisioned and promoted has routinely shown itself to not understand the value of free speech, equal protection and due process. Instead, by using the exact blatant stereotypes Greer is supposedly against and yet used at Cambridge about girls being taught to be “tidy” and boys not, modern feminists have shown in fact they cannot do what they claim.

    In a recent interview, Susan Brownmiller (also now persona non grata with her monsters) of “rape culture” fame via her famous 1975 book Against Our Will, commented that the U of VA Rolling Stone rape hoax is an example of how the country gets its info from high profile skewed narratives. What she failed to mention is that exact case was exactly that before it was uncovered as a hoax; a high profile lie about rape on college campuses.

    Brownmiller ludicrously went on to sarcastically use the word “alleged” in regard to the Bill Cosby case, once again publicly throwing down these daffy women’s understanding and attraction for due process. The truth is the monsters Greer and Brownmiller have been looking for over 40 years is themselves. They’ve just never had that realization forced on them by an event like the bombing of Berlin. Until something like that happens, there will be no cure for this insanity, not even when they’re hunted by their own monsters. The so-called “misogynists” of that 1973 crowd are looking more tolerant and just all the time. Too bad their good will and naivete has come back to skewer their entire country.

  16. Art Deco
    February 17th, 2016 @ 12:10 pm

    The catcalling video which caused such a stir was one of a Puerto Rican-type woman walking down commercial strips heavily populated with blacks. Black boulavardiers jab and josh people they find amusing. She got if for her jugs. I used to get it in downtown Rochester for the hats I wore walking to work. That’s urban life in America.

  17. gunga
    February 17th, 2016 @ 12:10 pm

    I had a China clipper once, but got rid of it. I mean, once you’ve clipped all of the family China, why keep it? So I gave it to my friend’s mate…

  18. Grandson Of TheGrumpus
    February 17th, 2016 @ 12:53 pm

    Most catcallers seem to be barely literate, and many of them apparently don’t even speak English, so what purpose is served by the endless complaints*¹ from feminist bloggers about catcalling? Is it just about claiming victimhood?

    : emphasis mine. -GoG

    Of course, here the author poses a rhetorical question, b/c Mr.McCain has been the one previously pointing-out that the repetition of complaints screeched by feminists is simply “virtue signaling”

    My personal view is— since we (i.e., sane people, as a group) know by their own definition that feminists lack any virtue or socially redeeming value, trait, or quality— “virtue signaling” is what could be termed an “empty semaphore”, and therefore should be studiously ignored.

    I suppose one could treat such semaphoring w/contempt and derision for wasting product society’s time and resources, it certainly has earned and w/new instances continues to earn it— but that is probably more attention than they, (i.e., the feminists) warrant.

  19. Ilion
    February 17th, 2016 @ 1:18 pm

    It should be obvious that the kind of guys who catcall women are not reading feminist blogs.
    When I was much younger (some decades ago), and long before there were any blogs, much less blogs by crazy cat ladies, I was the subject of catcalls a few times — and from persons of both sexes.
    It’s not “sexism” that explains why some people engage in catcalling.

  20. Fail Burton
    February 17th, 2016 @ 1:23 pm

    Indonesians used to shout out “Chuck Norris.” I have black hair. Don’t even ask me what that was about.

  21. Kirby McCain
    February 17th, 2016 @ 2:00 pm

    Yes, the times have changed. In the event of an emergency I shall shout ” Grab the children, let our equals fend for themselves! “

  22. Daniel Freeman
    February 17th, 2016 @ 2:06 pm

    “Complaints” about catcalling are also humblebragging a DHV.

  23. DeadMessenger
    February 17th, 2016 @ 2:29 pm

    There is a type of richness that is not monetary wealth. Perhaps the Patriarchy (bbin) intuitively knows this. I’d like to think so, anyway.

  24. DeadMessenger
    February 17th, 2016 @ 2:37 pm

    I’m not sure I’d call them “astute observers of human nature” when they don’t seem to recognize the value of menzfolk as providers and protectors, nor indeed, even recognize the value of the sperm cell. They’re not astute at all, as far as I can see, but rather enablers of their own selfish, sinful desires, even unto the destruction of the human race. Foolish mentally ill b1tches with exceedingly poor planning skills, I say.

  25. Ilion
    February 17th, 2016 @ 2:38 pm

    So, basically, what you’re saying is that the Patriarchy (bbin) probably isn’t going to just give me wealth while I sit on my lardass waiting for it to drop into my lap?
    .
    But don’t you get it? I’m a white[ish] male! Everyone *knows* that the whole point of the Patriarchy is to enable me to sit around doing nothing of any particular value to anyone else while living a comfortable life off the work of others!!1!

  26. Fail Burton
    February 17th, 2016 @ 2:50 pm

    “Equals, equals, equals and those closest to the lifeboats first!”

  27. Fail Burton
    February 17th, 2016 @ 2:53 pm

    My friend’s mate is a jolly ol’ fellow. He once served on a WW II submarine whose ghosts drove him to madness and then suicide 20 years later. True story.

  28. totenhenchen
    February 17th, 2016 @ 3:12 pm

    There are some thirsty motherfuckers out there.

  29. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 17th, 2016 @ 7:45 pm
  30. DeadMessenger
    February 17th, 2016 @ 9:47 pm

    How did you sneak a camera into the asylum, is what I want to know.

  31. What About ‘Rape Culture’ In High Schools? | The Lonely Conservative
    February 17th, 2016 @ 10:17 pm

    […] If you spend enough time online you hear all about the huge, major problem of “rape culture” that’s gripping our society. Much of it is made up nonsense to make women feel afraid, and then vote for the politicians who are against “rape culture.” Heck, even the show “Jeopardy” is considered “rape culture” in some circles. […]

  32. Instapundit » Blog Archive » LET’S SHIP THESE WOMEN TO MUSLIM COUNTRIES, WHERE THEY’LL BE KEPT IN SAFE ROOMS, MADE TO WEAR SAFE B…
    February 18th, 2016 @ 2:28 am

    […] LET’S SHIP THESE WOMEN TO MUSLIM COUNTRIES, WHERE THEY’LL BE KEPT IN SAFE ROOMS, MADE TO WEAR SAFE BURKAS, AND BE SAFE FROM LIFE AND EQUALITY: ‘Jeopardy’ Is Rape Culture? […]

  33. cargosquid
    February 18th, 2016 @ 2:43 am

    Jeopardy? You mean the place where Arthur Chu, of rape fantasies, concern trolling, SJW suckup, and Swatting fame, got his start?

  34. doug johnson
    February 18th, 2016 @ 3:41 am

    Leftists are extremely selective about who can be “painted by the same brush” and who can’t. Sometimes it’s the height of bigotry, sometimes it’s “progress”–and only THEY get to decide. That’s the important bit.

  35. gunga
    February 18th, 2016 @ 7:22 am

    Don’t get me started on on submarine ghosts…clanking chains and sound discipline drills do not mix…

  36. robertstacymccain
    February 18th, 2016 @ 8:22 am

    Feminists think nothing of taking the very worst atrocities against women as proof that ALL men are evil, to indict “culture” and “society” as reflecting the oppressive values of patriarchy, and to demand radical measures to prevent atrocities like whatever example they cite, e.g, Elliot Rodger and the Isla Vista massacre.

    Generalizing from an extreme example is entirely acceptable when feminists do it. However, they insist, no amount of violence committed by Islamic terrorists is ever sufficient for us to conclude that there is a problem with Islam, per se. That is unacceptable, because RAAAAACISM!

    Last night I was reading Andrea Dworkin, who cited a study of rape in Philadelphia in 1958. Well, I wasn’t born until 1959, and the only time I’ve been to Philadelphia was a couple of times when I had layovers at the airport on connecting flights back to D.C., during which I didn’t rape anyone. Yet this one study — by Professor Menachim Amir — was used as the basis not only of claims by Dworkin, but also by Susan Griffin and others, to the effect that convicted rapists are not psychologically different from other men. And this, in turn, influenced everything else feminists wrote about rape from the 1970s onward. Never, in feminist rhetoric about rape, is it acknowledged that most men are NOT rapists or that law-abiding men are as horrified by this crime as are feminists.

    The effort to make rape a generalized indictment of “male supremacy” must be recognized for what it is — anti-male hate propaganda — and this, in turn, raises questions about the motives and objectives of feminists, which is why anyone who calls them out on their lies is denounced as a “misogynist” and apologist.” It’s about defending feminism from critical scrutiny, because they know damned well they could not withstand such scrutiny. I am not responsible for rapes committed in Philadelphia in 1958, and I doubt any of my readers are, either. Yet the propaganda tactics of feminism are about creating a false sense of guilt, putting men on the defensive, so that no man is willing to criticize feminism lest he make himself an object of suspicion: “What’s HIS problem?”

  37. Dana
    February 18th, 2016 @ 9:31 am

    Our esteemed host wrote:

    Never, in feminist rhetoric about rape, is it acknowledged that most men are NOT rapists or that law-abiding men are as horrified by this crime as are feminists.

    Since all PIV sex is rape, as you have cited for us many times before, clearly all normal men are rapists. At best, only homosexual men males are not rapists, and that’s only if they never even tried normal sex.

  38. Ilion
    February 18th, 2016 @ 9:34 am

    RSM:Never, in feminist rhetoric about rape, is it acknowledged that most men are NOT rapists or that law-abiding men are as horrified by this crime as are feminists.

    I’m not convinced that women-in-general, never mind feminists, are nearly as horrified by rape as normal men are.

  39. Ilion
    February 18th, 2016 @ 9:44 am

    what you mean is “real sex”

  40. Ilion
    February 18th, 2016 @ 9:46 am

    I’ll bet those clanking ghost chains do make it hard for the sub to escape detection when it’s “silent running.”

  41. Ilion
    February 18th, 2016 @ 9:48 am

    … all round-eyes look alike; everyone knows that.

  42. Dana
    February 18th, 2016 @ 9:58 am

    Well, I s’pose that homosexual sex actually is ‘real sex,’ but it’s certainly not normal sex.

  43. bo ure
    February 18th, 2016 @ 10:00 am

    Yeah, only an imbecile would use a brush to apply tar.

  44. Susan Currie
    February 18th, 2016 @ 10:03 am

    ?my .friend’s mate Is getting 98$. HOURLY. on the internet.?….two days ago new McLaren. F1 bought after earning 18,512$,,,this was my previous month’s paycheck ,and-a little over, 17k$ Last month ..3-5 h/r of work a days ..with extra open doors & weekly. paychecks.. it’s realy the easiest work I have ever Do.. I Joined This 7 months ago and now making over 87$, p/h.Learn. More right Here!:b476????? http://GlobalSuperEmploymentVacanciesReportsBest/98$hourly…. .?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:?2:::::!:b476……

  45. Ilion
    February 18th, 2016 @ 10:40 am

    Nope. Only PIV — sans latex — is real sex.

  46. Terenc Blakely
    February 18th, 2016 @ 1:42 pm

    Hmm, feminists like to call all men rapists while rappers like to call all women whores. Both camps have the same level of intellectual rigor.

  47. gunga
    February 18th, 2016 @ 2:19 pm

    My friend’s mate was actually in the movie “Silent Running.” He says that Bruce Dern is one of the kindest people in Hollywood.

  48. gunga
    February 18th, 2016 @ 2:31 pm

    Didn’t I meet your friend’s mate during the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex Supplicants? Many Shubbs and Zulls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar that day I can tell you.

  49. Ilion
    February 18th, 2016 @ 2:37 pm

    My friend’s mate says “dern it!” all the time.

  50. Ilion
    February 18th, 2016 @ 2:50 pm

    But what about the McLaren?